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A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



THE 



Life of Robert Ross, 

Sacrificed to Municipal Misrule. 

A Story of Patriotism 

CALLING FOR MUNICIPAL REFORMS. 

BY 

REV. JAMES H, ROSS. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

REV. JOSIAH STRONG, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF " OUR COUNTRY," " THE NEW ERA," ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED. 



BOSTON: 
JAMES H. EARLE, PUBLISHER, 

178 Washington Street. 
1894. 






Copyright, 1894, 
By James H. Eak^e. 



All Rights Reserved. 



CONTENTS. 



TER PAGE 

I. Parentage and Pupilage 15 

II. Social Life and Business Career .... 28 

II. Consecrated to Christ and the Church . . 46 

:V. Martyrdom and Transfiguration .... 62 

V. Committee of One Hundred for Public Safety 87 

/I. Under the Stars and Stripes 99 

II. Friends and Foes to America 109 

II. A. P. A. in Controversy and in Court . . . 123 

X. Y. P. S. C. E. versus Municipal Misrule . . 131 

X. Officials as Spoilsmen and Freebooters . . 143 

CI. Civil Service Reform Imperative .... 155 

II. Redemption of the City the Goal of Civic 

Life 163 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



THIS volume is the outgrowth of an article 
by its author, in The Golden Rule, Boston, 
Mass., entitled " A Martyr to Pure Politics." The 
publisher of this book saw in that article the germ 
of a book of national importance and interest, 
and requested the author, Mr. Ross, to write it. 

The martyrdom of Robert Ross, and its mean- 
ing, have been commented upon in the daily and 
weekly press of the nation. For the sake of 
accuracy, and out of love for the deceased, the 
family designated their pastor, the undersigned, 
to furnish Mr. Ross with the materials available 
for the publisher's purposes, because he was born 
and bred in Troy, bears the family name, and 
could be trusted to do justice to his theme. He 
alone is responsible for the form of the narrative, 
and for any expressions of opinion that it may 
contain. 

It is believed that the pure, symmetrical life of 
5 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



Robert Ross will exert a wholesome influence 
wherever the record of it becomes known; that 
it cannot fail to interest all organizations of young 
people, secular and religious, such as the athletic, 
Sabbath schools, the Brotherhood of Andrew and 
Philip, the Young Men's Christian Association, 
and the Endeavor Societies; that the present 
revival of public interest in municipal conditions, 
problems, and reforms, by Lyceum and Municipal 
Leagues, various civic clubs and societies, cannot 
be stimulated in any better way than by noting 
the situation in Troy as typical and crucial 
Troy has been misgoverned. Reforms are now 
attempted. If successful, there is no city in the 
land that will not acquire new hope and courage ; 
for the task is as difficult as can be found any- 
where. The undersigned, in the address he gave 
at the funeral of the deceased, said what he wishes 
to reiterate, — 

" The death of Robert Ross leaves with 

US A LESSON AS CHRISTIANS AND CITIZENS. It 
IS THAT A MAN CAN BE A THOROUGHLY GOOD 

Christian, and at the same time a good 
citizen; and, furthermore, that he cannot 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



BE A GOOD CITIZEN WITHOUT BEING A CHRIS- 
TIAN. ... IT IS NOT UNMANLY TO BE A DE- 
VOTED FOLLOWER OF JESUS CHRIST." 

In behalf of George Ross and family. 

WILLIAM H. SYBRANDT. 



Oakwood Manse, Troy, N.Y. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 



The author desires to tender his sincere and 
hearty thanks to the parents and brothers of Rob- 
ert Ross for photographs used in this biography, 
and to the Rev. Wm. H. Sybrandt as their 
prompt and efficient representative in communi- 
cating details ; to Secretary Foster Turner, of 
the Esek Bussey Fire Engine Company, for photo- 
graph of the draped engine-house, and for corre- 
spondence ; to the Troy Times for reports of the 
murder and trial of the murderer, a verbatim re- 
port of the address to the jury of Attorney 
George Raines of Rochester, N.Y., and for 
the plates loaned the publisher ; to The Telegram, 
of Troy, for a verbatim report of the address 
of the Rev. Herbert C. Hinds; to the Rev. 
Josiah Strong, D. D., for his note of introduc- 
tion ; and to numerous friends and editors who 
have encouraged the writing of the biography. 
Gratefully, 

James H. Ross. 

Boston, Mass., 1894. 



INTRODUCTION. 



ONE of the most hopeful signs of the times is 
the widespread revival of civic patriotism. 

Our most friendly critics abroad and our most 
intelligent citizens at home alike recognize in the 
government of our large cities the one conspicuous 
failure of our institutions ; and this national dis- 
grace is rapidly becoming a national peril. The 
question whether the city is capable of self-gov- 
ernment involves the question of national self- 
government, for the city is soon to dominate the 
nation. 

At present the state does not trust the city to 
govern itself ; it is the state which determines to 
what extent the city shall manage its own affairs. 
But soon the city will take matters into its own 
hands, and control, not only its own affairs, but 
those of the state and of the nation also. The 
wonderful growth of our cities during recent years 
is not local nor temporary. It is not due to the 

9 



I O IN TROD UC TION: 

peculiar conditions of a new civilization. It is a 
world phenomenon, and is due to causes which 
enter as essential elements into modern civiliza- 
tion everywhere ; and as these causes are perma- 
nent, there can be no reasonable doubt that this 
tendency from country to city will be permanent. 
Our urban population is now six times as large as 
it was forty years ago, and relative to the whole 
population it is more than twice as large. From 
1880 to 1890 our rural population increased only 
fourteen per cent, while our urban population in- 
creased sixty-one per cent. If this rate of increase 
continues for a quarter of a century, in 1920 our 
urban population will be upwards of ten millions 
greater than our rural. If the city is incapable 
of self-government then, as it is now, what will 
become of state and nation when it dominates 
them both ? 

Our American institutions are based on two 
fundamental principles which are co-ordinate and 
alike essential ; viz., local self-government and 
federation. The latter was at stake in the civil 
conflict of a generation ago, and was immovably 
established by the result of the war. The other 
principle is now on trial, and it is yet to be deter- 



INTRO D UC TION. I 1 



mined whether a large city population is capable 
of self-government. On that issue, as we have 
already seen, depends the permanence of our free 
institutions. 

We need, therefore, a new patriotism which is 
civil rather than military, which fixes its attention, 
not on the Union, which is no longer imperilled, 
but on local government, which has become widely 
corrupted — not a patriotism which constructs 
fortifications and builds navies (though with the 
present degree of civilization these may still be 
needed), so much as one which purifies politics 
and substitutes statesmen for demagogues ; not 
one which follows the drum-beat to battle, but one 
which goes to primaries ; not one that " rallies 
round the flag " so much as one that rallies round 
the ballot-box ; not a patriotism which exhausts 
itself in eulogizing our institutions, but one which 
expresses itself in strengthening their foundations. 

Such patriotism calls for courage no less than 
that which devotes itself to military service. It 
calls for men brave enough to face the hatred of 
pothouse politicians, who are as mean as they are 
unscrupulous ; it calls for men who dare to be un- 
popular, who dare to be misunderstood and mis- 



1 2 INTROD UCTION. 



represented ; men who dare to be ridiculed and lied 
about and abused ; men who dare to suffer in their 
business, and, if need be, in their bodies ; men 
who can wait for justification because they are 
working, not for applause, but for principle. 

Such was the young man the story of whose 
martyrdom is told in this book. He was as true a 
patriot and hero as if he had fallen on the field of 
battle. Not many like Robert Ross will be called 
to resist unto blood, striving against municipal 
corruption ; but we need the same spirit of cour- 
age, of self-devotion, of intelligent patriotism, and 
the same largeness of mind which is capable of 
rising above all prejudice of party, race, and reli- 
gion, if we are to stamp out the foul evils that are 
brooded by bossism. 

Happily this new patriotism is rapidly growing. 
Its spirit is finding expression in many ways, one 
of the most significant of which is the good-citi- 
zenship movement of the Society of Christian 
Endeavor, of which young Ross was an active 
member. His early death was none too early, if 
the spirit of Christian patriotism which animated 
him becomes thereby the inspiration of a host of 
American youth. 



INTR OD UC TION. 



The biographer of Robert Ross, though bear- 
ing the same family name, is not a relative. His 
pen has been inspired, not by any personal mo- 
tive, but by interest in municipal reform, to which 
cause this volume is calculated to render eminent 
service. 

Josiah Strong. 



** 



\ 




Father of Robert Ross. 



A MARTYR OF TO-DAY 



CHAPTER I. 

PARENTAGE AND PUPILAGE. 

OVER the pavilion, on the left of the visitor, 
as he entered the Administration Building 
of the World's Fair, in Chicago, 1893, was an 
ideal and allegorical statue entitled " Strength." 
It consisted of two youthful figures, male and 
female. The name would seem to have been due 
to the male figure only. He was represented as 
seated, and he was the model of a modern trained 
athlete. His figure was imposing, his face was 
that of a youth conscious of his strength, eager 
for the exertion of his powers, and his attitude 
that of affection and protection for the woman 
who leaned upon him confidingly, and whom he 
covered with his broad shield. 

The statue was one of many intended to illus- 
trate the characteristics and virtues of Americans. 

l S 



!6 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



Not only physical strength, but moral courage 
was typified. The face was intellectual. There 
was in it the expectancy that anticipated a coming 
adversary, against himself or the woman by his 
side, or against both. No fear was apparent, no 
prophecy except an assurance of perfect safety 
and complete victory. 

If the statue had attempted to portray Robert 
Ross and his betrothed on the very eve of their 
marriage, and of his death by violence, it could 
scarcely have been more accurate. He was mur- 
dered March 6, 1894. and was to have been 
married in May. If some image-breaker like Mo- 
hammed had broken the statue into fragments, 
suddenly and with one blow, he would have repre- 
sented the murderer, who, by taking the life of 
Robert Ross, transformed a romance into a tra- 
gedy, and a private life into a public one attaching 
itself to great governmental problems and reforms. 
The same over-ruling Providence that changed the 
Cross as a symbol of shame into a symbol of glory, 
hallowed his name, glorified his death, and trans- 
figured his life. 

The circumstances that attended his death dis- 
closed a youth of rare qualities, one upon whose 



PARENTAGE AND PUPILAGE. 1 7 

entire career the search-light of publicity, legal 
scrutiny, and ingenious, fertile hostility has been 
turned, revealing nothing that discredits him and 
much that elevates him above many youth of kin- 
dred years and station in life. He was strong and 
safe as a boy and a youth. Nature endowed him 
with physical powers and moral qualities that 
made him self-reliant, a help to the weak and the 
timid, an example alike to the class of youth that 
strive for moral mastery of themselves and to 
those who surrender to temptations, vices, and 
crimes. In life and aeath he did the state a mani- 
fold service, which has been and will be recognized 
and honored in various ways. 

The genealogical and national fountains out of 
which his life issued must be opened, or his life 
and his victory in death cannot be comprehended. 
They flowed from the Highlands and Lowlands of 
old Scotland. He was of Scotch descent, from 
both parents. 

His father, George Ross, was born in Preston- 
pans, Scotland, which is on the Firth of Forth in 
the western part of the County of Haddington. 
The tradition of the origin of the name of Pres- 
tonpans is that it was first called Priest-toon 



1 8 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



because of a little colony of Roman Catholic 
priests living there. It was also called "The 
Pans," from the pans used in evaporating the salt 
water. The two names were finally combined 
into Prestonpans. 

It is eight and one-half miles east of Edinburgh, 
and participates therefore in the influences that 
radiate from that terraced, beautiful, and cultured 
city, that many regard as the most beautiful city 
in the world. 

The whole region is historic. Scotland and 
Prestonpans shared in the witchcraft delusion of 
the seventeenth century. In 1607 Isobel Grier- 
son was burned at Prestonpans, on the ground 
that, in the house of Adam Clark, in the likeness 
of his own cat, she had frightened his household 
and especially his maid-servant. She had also 
disturbed by her enchantments the family of a 
man named Brown, to whom she appeared as 
" ane infant bairn." 

During the English Revolution of 1603 to 1658, 
Oliver Cromwell defeated at Prestonpans, in 1648, 
a Scotch army led into England by the Duke of 
Hamilton to help Charles the First, who reigned 
from 1625 to 1649. 



PARENTAGE AND PUPILAGE. 1 9 

A war between France and England induced 
France, in 1744, to place Prince Charles Edward 
Stuart, grandson of James II., at the head of the 
Jacobites, and a formidable armament. The Jacob- 
ites were the adherents of the male line of the 
house of Stuart in Great Britain. In 1745 
the youthful adventurer, who sought to recover 
the throne of his royal ancestor, landed in a small 
vessel, with only seven friends, on a little island 
of the Hebrides. Soon some of the Scotch High- 
land chiefs pledged themselves to support his 
cause with their substance and followers. 

Many, however, stood aloof, or sustained the 
opposing side, under the leadership of the Lord 
President, Duncan Forbes Stewart of Culloden. 
Sir John Cope marched his royal troops north- 
ward to Inverness, thereby avoiding rather than 
encountering the opposing forces. On the 17th 
of September the rebels marched into Edinburgh, 
and proclaimed James the Pretender, father of 
Edward, at the Town Cross, as King. They ob- 
tained weapons and ammunition that had been 
stored to defend the city against them. Then 
they won an easy victory over Sir John Cope at 
Prestonpans. A single charge of the clansmen 



20 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

cut to pieces his two thousand British troops, 
and led to the capture of their cannon, baggage, 
and military chests. From the church steeple of 
the village, Rev. Alexander Carlyle [i 722-1 805] 
had seen Prince Edward enter Edinburgh, and had 
watched the battle, in which the gallant Colonel 
Gardiner fell, with whom the Scotch village 
parson had dined the previous day. There is a 
monument to Colonel Gardiner at the appropriate 
spot. 

Prestonpans to-day is devoted to the manufac- 
ture of salt by evaporation. It is supposed to 
have had salt pans as early as the 12th century, 
and thriving manufactures until some time after 
the Reformation. The population is commercial 
and sea-faring. There is an old ruined castle out- 
side of the village. The house known as "Colonel 
Gardiner's house" stood about half a mile south 
of the castle. An old thorn-tree southeast of 
Prestonpans is still pointed out as marking the 
spot where the battle was hottest. There is also 
a high wall standing there which was a barrier to 
those escaping from the pursuers, and where a 
great many were slain. A stone staircase re- 
mains, but all the woodwork of the structure was 



PARENTAGE AND PUPILAGE. 21 



long ago destroyed by fire. The grounds, cover- 
ing five or six acres, and enclosed by a stone wall 
six or seven feet high, contain apple and pear 
trees, and are cultivated as a garden, the products 
of which are sent to the Edinburgh market. 

The clan of Ross represents the best Scottish 
blood and history. It is traceable to the Scotch 
Highlands. The meaning of the word Ross is 
promontory or headland. The Scotch race are 
identical historically with the Irish. They are the 
remnant of the great Celtic race that the Roman 
and Saxon invasions of Scotland on the south, 
and the Danish invasions from the east and the 
west, did not touch. They were the last to resist 
with success the almost uniformly conquering 
armies of Rome. 

In the year 81 a.d., North Britain was in- 
habited by twenty-one aboriginal tribes or clans. 
The clan system was a larger family system, the 
patriarchal form of government, manifesting nat- 
ural authority, expressing and invoking affection 
and unqualified reverence for the supreme com- 
mand. "The Highlander," says Professor John 
Stuart Blackie, himself a typical Scotchman, "was 
a healthy man, a sturdy peasant, a good workman, 



22 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



a natural gymnast, an intrepid fighter, a daring 
commander, and the best of colonists." In essen- 
tials the description applies to Robert Ross. 

The origin of clanships and tartans is un- 
known. A^map of Scotland, published in 1654, 
contained an ornamental title, representing two 
Highlanders in striped clothes, one wearing the 
« Belted Plaid," a large, long piece of plaiding, so 
folded and confined by a belt around the waist 
as to form a complete dress, plaid and kilt in one 
piece. That is assumed to have been the origin 
of the now highly ornamental Highland dress ; 
and if correct, the style is exactly two hundred 
and forty years old, or two centuries and two- 
score years. 

Various colored cloths have been worn by the 
different clans of the Highlanders from a very 
early period. Originally tartans, the striped and 
spotted cloths, were worn only by native High- 
landers ; and so the Lowlanders, the dwellers in 
the Border Counties on the south, and the dwell- 
ers in the northeast were excluded. More re- 
cently many tartans have been invented and 
manufactured. 

The Highlanders have always been distin- 
guished for bravery. 



3 hH 





Mother 01 Robert Ross. 



PARENTAGE AND PUPILAGE. 2$ 

The clan of Ross began with Paul MacTire, 
famous in tradition for indomitable valor. To 
him William, Earl of Ross, Lord of Skye, granted 
a charter for the lands of Gairloch in 1366. 
Some authorities date the origin as far back as 
1220, so that the history of the clan covers from 
five and one-quarter to six and three-quarters 
cer tunes. The Rosses of Balnagowan were a 
very ancient line, as they sprang from William, 
Earl of Ross, a great patriot and steady friend 
of King Robert I. Earl Hugh, the son of Earl 
William of Ross, was killed at Halidon Hill, while 
fighting for his king and country, in 1333. 

Historically, therefore, Robert Ross and his 
murderer, through their remote ancestors, were 
natural allies by nationality. Religious dissen- 
sions had made those ancestors members of con- 
flicting forms of religion, Roman Catholic and 
Protestant. The first great ecclesiastical strug- 
gle in Scotland was for the overthrow of Roman 
Catholicism, and accomplished its object. Inher- 
ited prejudices had made his assailant a represen- 
tative of historic antagonisms between Catholics 
and Protestants. 

George Ross, father of Robert, a descendant 



24 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



from the Highlanders, a Lowlander by birth, 
before leaving Scotland, became engaged to Isa- 
bella Connell, who was born in Renton, in the 
county of Dumbarton, about fifty miles west of 
Edinburgh, and so also her early life was spent 
within the range of influences radiating alike from 
the Highlands and from Edinburgh. The two 
were born and lived in youth within sixty miles of 
each other. 

George Ross came to the United States in 1851. 
His betrothed came in August, 1853; and they 
were married in Brooklyn, N.Y., August 26, by a 
Methodist pastor. They have had ten children, 
five sons and five daughters. William Ross was 
shot before Robert was, on the evil election day 
in Troy, March 6, 1894. Both were born in Troy : 
William, May 3, 1857, at 311 Ninth Street; Rob- 
ert, September 2, 1868, at 4 43 Tenth ^ Street. 
Robert was the youngest son. The training of 
the several children, including that of these two 
sons, was given first at home, a religious and moral 
training, principally by the mother, as in most 
homes. The Scotch antecedents and traditions 
were a part of the family life; otherwise the 
parents would not have been true Scotch, but a 



'-% 




Robert Ross at four years 



PARENTAGE AND PUPILAGE. 2$ 

Scotchman who forgets or disowns his native 
heath is a rarity indeed. No nationality exceeds 
his in loyalty to native land and history. 

In 1877, when Robert was nine years old, the 
family went to Mitchell, Mitchell County, Iowa, 
where William was engaged in farming, having 
gone thither three years before. Robert remained 
on the farm three years. He attended the dis- 
trict school while there, and some amusing inci- 
dents are told of his love of fun. He was a 
mischievous, but not an ill-disposed boy. On one 
occasion he startled his female teacher by holding 
a live rabbit close to her ear ; at another time 
he suspended a broom so that when the teacher 
opened the door to get it to sweep the school- 
room, after the pupils were dismissed, it would 
fall upon her. He and others waited after school 
to see the show and hear the teacher scream. 
While in the West all the children, except Robert, 
were members of a Good Templar's Lodge. 
Robert was then too young to join. The family 
expressed the temperance sentiments and partici- 
pated in the agitations that led Iowa to adopt 
constitutional prohibition of the liquor traffic. 

After Robert's return from the West he at- 



26 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



tended, for a short time, the public schools of 
Troy, and was a faithful student. He never went 
beyond the Grammar department. One of his 
teachers, Miss Sarah Lundy, remembers distinctly 
how eager he was, when a pupil of hers in the 
drawing-class, to get all the information he could 
in that branch. She speaks of him as serious, 
eager, and alert to gain knowledge. He was es- 
pecially interested in drawing, because it would be 
of service in his anticipated work as a machinist. 

While attending school in Troy, like many other 
boys, he "carried collars." He did a kind of 
wholesale business in this line. He had a wagon, 
and took a large number of baskets to the shops. 
The linen collar and cuff and shirt industries of 
Troy are among its leading manufactures. 

His teacher in the Sabbath School of the Oak- 
wood Avenue Presbyterian Church was Wm. S. 
Van Vleck, who had great interest in Robert as 
well as love for him, and spoke of him as " his 

boy." 

When Robert was about twelve years old, one 
of the neighbors in Troy, who kept a cow, prom- 
ised him half a bushel of cherries from the tree 
if Robert would catch his calf for him, as no one 



PARENTAGE AND PUPILAGE. 2/ 

seemed to be able to do it. " Rob," or " Bob " as 
he was nicknamed, easily caught the calf, and with 
one hand on its head and the other on its tail, 
which he occasionally twisted, he made the calf go 
wherever he wished, and soon earned his basket 
of cherries. 

The remote and immediate origin of Robert 
Ross, therefore, accounts for him fully, not merely 
in the earlier, but later stages of his short career. 
His Scotch ancestry, his religious parents and 
home, his pupilage in the public schools and in the 
Presbyterian Sabbath School, his training in the 
knowledge of the Bible as the great rule of human 
life and duty, his free contact with varying nation- 
alities in a city and ward of the city proverbial for 
its mixed nationalities, at once developed and lib- 
eralized him. The finished result was a model 
young man. At his funeral, held in the Second 
Presbyterian Church, on Fifth Avenue, because of 
its central location and its large seating capacity, 
the Rev. Wm. H. Sybrandt, who had known him 
well during the latter half of his life, said : 

"The Americanized, Christianized blood of a 
Scotchman flowed in his veins, and he was true to 
his God, his home, his church, and his country." 



28 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



CHAPTER II. 

SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER. 

THERE is a phase and period of each life that 
lies between the schools and one's home 
and occupation. It is that phase which allies the 
individual with his fellows, that recognizes social 
instincts and obligations. The physical inherit- 
ance of Robert Ross was splendid. When full- 
grown, he was six feet, two and one-half inches in 
height, weighed two hundred pounds, and was 
finely proportioned. 

He has been compared to Bishop Phillips 
Brooks in two particulars — his statuesque figure, 
and the purity of his life. He had trained him- 
self athletically. He was fond of all kinds of in- 
door and out-door sports, Scotch and American, 
such as the Caledonian games, rope-pulling as a 
test of strength, swimming, base ball, foot-ball, 
croquet, lawn tennis, gymnastics, etc. He was 
depended upon for feats demanding physical 
strength and athletic judgment and skill. It was 



SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER. 29 



natural and easy for him to respond to such de- 
mands. He led in sports. He induced those 
younger than himself to engage in them, and was 
their eager, willing instructor. The children at 
picnics found in him and in his leadership one 
of the pleasures of their outing. The lower floor 
of his home was a well equipped private gym- 
nasium. 

Not animalism but athleticism was the spirit 
of his physical life. He kept himself pure. He 
was free from physical vices, from the self-indul- 
gence that is self-destroying. He refrained from 
the roughness and pugilism to which a robust 
physique may easily descend. He might have 
made an admirable Y. M. C. A. gymnastic in- 
structor, because of his trained physical powers 
and dexterity, and his pronounced religious spirit. 

In August, 1887, when he was only nineteen 
years of age, while taking a ride in beautiful Oak- 
wood cemetery with his father, mother, and sister 
Maggie, the rear wheel of the carriage suddenly 
collapsed and a serious accident seemed imminent. 
Robert immediately jumped from the carriage and 
caught by the head the horse, which had begun 
to rear. With the other hand he took a firm 



30 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

hold of one of the horse's forelegs and threw him. 
A runaway was thus prevented, and none of the 
party was hurt. The horse and carriage belonged 
to Eugene McClure, who played an unenviable 
part in the election tragedy as a saloon-keeper 
and alleged ally of repeaters in voting. McClure 
had painted the wagon so that its defects were 
concealed, although he must have known that 
it was unsafe. 

About two years ago, while Robert was put- 
ting a water engine in a church, he got into 
very close quarters. He had cut an opening in 
the side of the pulpit platform just large enough 
to admit his body by entering head first, but he 
found after he had gone in that he was unable 
to back out. He was all alone, and as he could 
make no one hear him he had either to help him- 
self out or remain a prisoner. His ingenuity, 
however, suggested a way of egress, and his per- 
severing will effected a release. Taking his saw, 
which he had fortunately carried in with him, he 
reached back and sawed off a timber behind him, 
and thus made a safe retreat. 

The Ross Valve Company belongs to the New 
England Water Works Association, which has 



SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CARSEK. 



31 



active and associate members. Last year, 1893 
wh.le Robert was in Worcester, Mass., two base 
bail nines were made up one day, one nine con- 
sisting of active members and the other of as- 
socate members. The nine to which he be- 
longed, consisting of associate members, was 
victorious. 

" Rob " knocked the ball away off into a body 
of water, and made the only home run that was 
made. 

His school life was short. His tastes were 
mechanical. They were revealed early in life 
and were gratified and cultivated while in the 
intermediate school. They hastened his entrance 
upon a business career. He became a mechanic 
a member of the Master Mechanics' Association,' 
which held its last annual meeting in Saratoga, 
N. Y. The Association held a memorial service 
m Congress Hall Hotel, Sabbath evening, June 17, 
1894. The memorial services were presided over 
by G. W. Morris, of Pittsburg, and the memorial 
was read by M. N. Forney, of New York. The 
religious services were conducted by the Rev. 
Dr. Joseph Carey, rector of Bethesda Episcopal 
Church, Saratoga, and Archdeacon of the Convo- 



32 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

cation of Troy. The Bethesda Church surpliced 
choir, and Reeve's American Band, of Providence, 
R.I., assisted in the exercises. Robert Ross was 
among those whose life and death were commem- 
orated. 

The hymns sung were : — 

"Jesus Lover of My Soul." 

" Nearer my God to Thee." 

" Lead Kindly Light." 

The railway officials and representatives of rail- 
way supply houses united in a resolution, which 
said that his qualities were gradually bringing 
him into prominence as a successful business man, 
and added : " we look upon him as one who gave 
all, even his own young life, to help win and main- 
tain clean and honest government. We recognize 
and honor his high principles, his devotion to 
duty, and his fearlessness in danger, which he 
fully realized." 

He was regarded as thoroughly efficient and 
reliable. His chief work in the later years of his 
life consisted in putting motors into church build- 
ings for pumping organs by water power. He 
was brought into contact with the representatives 
of religious organizations. Church committees, 



SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER. 33 



Roman Catholic priests, Protestant pastors and 
rectors alike welcomed him as an agreeable man, 
a skilled and trustworthy mechanic, and an ex- 
emplar of religion and morality, whose influence 
over his fellow-workmen was wholly for good. As 
a business man, and a social companion, he had no 
difficulty in affiliating with Roman Catholics, nor 
with priests. Just before and after his death an 
attempt was made to create the impression that 
he was a bitter personal antagonist of Catholics. 
His opposition was to corruption in politics. 

A Protestant and a Republican, he could work 
and vote at the polls for a Democrat and a Ro- 
man Catholic. Any opposition from Catholics to 
him as a Protestant issued from " the baser sort," 
who would discredit any religious organization. 

Assistant District Attorney Fagan, who pros- 
secuted Bartholomew Shea as the murderer of 
Robert Ross, said in his opening speech to the 
jury: 

"As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, 
as one born and bred in the faith of that Church, 
I wish to enter a most determined and heartfelt 
protest against the attempt of this defendant, as 
shown by the insinuations of his counsel, to wrap 
himself up in the mantle of that great Church, and 



34 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

to attempt to hide his blood-stained hands beneath 
the royal purple of her robe. As a member of 
the great Democratic party, I most earnestly pro- 
test against the effort of the defendant to clothe 
himself in the mantle of that party, and to hide 
his hands, stained as they are with the blood of 
Robert Ross, in the robe of that party." 

Certainly, Robert did not mix business and re- 
ligion and Catholicism so as to defeat his own 
legitimate objects, and the identical objects of 
those whom he represented. He was companion- 
able, receptive to proffered hospitality, silent 
where controversy could easily be invited or pre- 
cipitated ; diplomatic and wise in dealing with 
men of varying habits, tastes, and opinions. 

He often dined with Roman Catholic priests. 
On one occasion he wanted a glass of milk, saw 
none, and asked for it. The priest humorously 
replied : " You'll get no milk here." A sug- 
gestive wink directed Ross's attention to the 
side-board, where equally suggestive and filled 
decanters told well enough what he might have to 
drink. He finally took tea, thereby neither of- 
fending his host nor compromising himself as a 
pledged total abstainer from intoxicating liquors 
and a believer in absolute prohibition of the liquor 
traffic. 



SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER. 35 

Robert was a man of energy, a "hustler" as 
some would say. To miss a train might mean to 
him the loss of a clay, and he was on the alert 
to save time and make the most of it. Having 
occasion to do some work in a town on the 
Hartford and New Haven Railroad, he gave up 
his checks and left orders to have his bags all 
ready for him when he should leave. At this 
station a fence separates the trains going in one 
direction from those going in another. When 
Robert arrived at the depot, after having finished 
his work in town, the south-bound train, which he 
was to take, was nearly ready to start, but his 
bags had not been cared for as he had ordered. 
He quickly climbed over the fence, got his bags 
and dropped them on the other side of the fence, 
between the fence and the train. Then he 
climbed over himself, and, standing on the car 
platform, reached down, got the bags, and placed 
them on the car; but in bending over to do this 
he lost several small articles from his coat pocket : 
he stepped quickly from the platform to pick 
them up, and at the same moment the train 
started ; and as the space between it and the fence 
was very small, Robert's body was turned around 



36 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

by the moving car. He had presence of mind, 
however, to drop down at once, otherwise he 
would have been instantly killed, and to lie at full 
length beside the track between the fence and the 
train so that the steps of the cars passed over his 
head, and he thus escaped unharmed. 

While putting an organ motor in a church in 
Williamsburgh, N.Y., he found that the plumbers 
had filled with pipes the place he needed, and so 
it was necessary to make another. 

A member of the building committee, a Ger- 
man, came in while Robert was busy, and, being 
somewhat annoyed at what seemed to him a sort 
of iconoclastic work, said to him, with a brogue 
and a peculiar tone which Robert afterwards used 
to imitate, to the great amusement of his friends, 
" I see you're rippin' an' tare-m away." 

Robert was a salesman as well as a mechanic. 
He had tried on one occasion to sell an organ 
motor to a Roman Catholic priest, but the rev- 
erend gentleman would not purchase it, as he 
thought the price was too high. Robert finally 
made the price satisfactory, and then the priest 
told him to "peck away." 

His last business letter from the Valve Com- 



SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER. $? 

pany was an order relating to work in a Catholic 
Church. He was accustomed to sign his business 
letters as -Rob," or -Bob," but in this instance 
wrote his name in full, as it is seen in connection 
with his portrait. 

He patronized the firm of A. Meekin & Co., 
King Street, Troy, in ordering printing. That 
firm publishes a temperance and prohibition paper, 
and in its issue for April, 1894, Mr. Meekin 
said : — 

" In business relations, we found him punctual 
and exemplary. One trait will serve to illustrate 
his thoughtfulness for others. While it is cus- 
tomary in societies and churches for the chairman 
of committee on printing to first order the work, 
take a bill when completed and hand it to an au- 
diting committee, through whose hands it must 
pass in reaching the treasurer, who suits his con- 
venience m paying it, necessitating a delay of 
weeks and not infrequently of months, Robert 
Ross always paid for work ordered by him took a 
receipted bill, and thus assumed respLsSlity f ? 
its payment. One who has waited over a year for 
the payment of a bill amounting to one dollar 
knows how to appreciate this trait in his character." 
Robert Ross was one of the charter members of 
the Esek Bussey Fire Company, No. 8, which was 
organized January 23, 1888. Thus he became a 



38 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



fireman in his twentieth year. The company is a 
volunteer organization ; named in honor of a busi- 
ness man who has been a Trojan practically all his 
life, and whose stove works are near the home of 
Ross, and the Fire Company. It was confirmed by 
the common council of the city, June 20, 1 890. An 
honorable pride prevails in the northeastern sec- 
tion of Troy over the existence of this company, 
and the value of its services to the city, — the 
name it bears, the social conditions of the build- 
ing, its cleanliness, its homelike parlor, and the 
fraternity of its members. 

Robert Ross's name has been reviewed by the 
company in the light of his membership, from its 
origin to his death. Secretary Foster R. Turner 
writes that fi his enemies can find no blot or stain 
on his character." 

He was a superb fireman, by virtue of his fig- 
ure, strength, skill, perseverance, self-control, and 
daring. He took a joke kindly, and ignored what 
might offend others, when as sometimes hap- 
pened and may happen anywhere, a joke was too 
practical or personal, and remarks were made that 
were stinging to a sensitive nature, whether so 
intended or not. 



SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER. 



39 



It would not have been safe for most young 
men to pick a quarrel with him, with expectation 
that a personal encounter would ensue. He was 
so conscious that the offender would be the worse 
for it and so indisposed to quarrelsomeness and 
fighting, that his silence and inaction were easily 
comprehended and were not mistaken for crin- 
ging and cowardice. He was a Christian when he 
joined the company, and as a fireman he did not 
discredit his Christianity. He was sound, not 
only in faith, but in morals. He did not swear, 
and, aside from the moral wrong of profanity, was 
too much of a gentleman to be vulgar among gen- 
tlemen. He respected their rights no less^than 
the rights of ladies. He did not acquire the care- 
less habits of the users of tobacco, chewers and 
smokers, and therefore did not offend the sensi- 
bilities of those who, whether gentlemen or ladies, 
find cuspidors and all-pervading tobacco smoke an 
unnecessary evil, as tested by good taste and 
politeness. He could engage in exhausting labors 
and exposures to extreme heat and cold, and 
drenching rains, without resorting to alcoholic 
stimulants as an immediate refuge and a quack 
remedy for weakness and chills; a cure-all for real 



40 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

or fancied ills of the flesh. He was jovial, with- 
out being coarse. As a young man among young 
men he practised religion and morality so well, 
that it was not necessary for him to preach much, 
yet he agitated for good measures and causes. 

He was spared from death by an accident only 
to die by violence less than three months later. 
On Thursday, December 14, 1893, a fire broke out 
in the store of J. M. Warren & Co., corner of 
Broadway and River Streets, the very centre of the 
business district of Troy. A double alarm was 
sounded at 2.21 p.m., and the signal tap announ- 
cing that it was extinguished, at 2.30 a.m. of De- 
cember 15. It had lasted twelve hours. During 
its progress the officer in command ordered Fos- 
ter R. Turner, the secretary of the Esek Bussey 
Company, to pick out five men, and try to break 
through the wall of the burning building. Climb- 
ing to the neighboring roof of the firm of Stark- 
weather & Allen, the group of picked men began 
work. They worked long and hard but unsuccess- 
fully, owing to the dense smoke which choked and 
blinded them. They gave out, and a fresh relay 
was sent to take their places, among whom was 
Robert Ross. The fire in the meantime was 



SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER. 



41 



creeping slowly but surely into the building be- 
neath them. By a determined effort on the°part 
of the men, the hole was at last broken through 
when the smoke became so dense, that they could 
not see their associates at the pipes who were at 
that time on the roof, stationed only ten feet 
away. They started back from the wall but could 
not see. Robert Ross approached, unconscious 
of his danger, the edge of the roof; but others 
apprehending it, drew him back and saved him 
from stepping into mid-air. But for them he 
would have fallen at least seventy-five or eighty 
feet. As soon as the first hole through the wall 
was broken, two streams were turned into the 
building, stopping all further danger southward 
Another hole was cut and the streams divided 
and m about five hours the fire was out. 

The members of the Esek Bussey Company, act- 
ing under orders from the officer in command, had 
accomplished the strategic and heroic work which 
led to the extinction of the fire, and had arrested 
its threatened extension. 

On the evening of March 6, the day of Robert 
Ross's martyrdom, about twenty of his fellow- 
members in the Fire Company were grouped in 



\ 



42 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

their building, enraged and outraged by the mui- 
derous events attending the city election, that had 
removed one of their own number, a man, a work- 
man, a fireman, and a Christian whom they loved. 
They were in a desperate frame of mind, obedient 
to the law as citizens, yet eager that justice and 
the penalties of broken law should overtake the 
murderer. The neighborhood was the most ex- 
cited part of a city aflame with indignation. The 
man who would have lisped then an insinuation 
against the name of Robert Ross probably would 
have suffered violence at their hands. A few 
days later, a Trojan attorney, George B. Welling- 
ton, addressed eight hundred men who, he said, 
would have flung away their lives for the sake of 
the martyr and the city, if anything could have 
been gained by it. 

The walls of the parlor of the Esek Bussey 
Fire Company are decorated by a framed crayon 
portrait of Robert Ross, donated to the company 
by A. Alexander, of the Troy Portrait Company. 
A photograph is presented herewith of the engine 
house as draped in mourning for a suitable period 
after the martyr's death, in honor, it may be said, 
of the loss of the most valued member of the 
company. 



bd 




SOCIAL LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER. 45 

On the eve of his death, Robert Ross was on 
the eve of his anticipated marriage to Miss Nellie 
May Patton, a member of a neighboring family in 
the section of the city where he resided. Hartley 
Coleridge [1 796-1849], son of the English philoso- 
pher and poet, wrote an ode " On a Young Man 
Dying on the Eve of Marriage," which may 
rightly be recalled in its application to Robert 
Ross and his betrothed : — 

" With contrite tears, and agony of prayer, 

God, we besought, thy virtuous youth to spare, 
And thought, oh ! be the human thought forgiven, 
Thou wert too good to die, too young for heaven; — 
Yet sure the prayers of love had not been vain, 
If death to thee wert not exceeding gain. 

Tho' for ourselves, and not for thee we mourn, 
The weakness of our hearts thou wilt not scorn; 
And if thy Saviour's and thy Father's will, 
Such angel love permit, wilt love us still, 
For Death, which every tie of earth unbinds, ' 
Can ne'er dissolve ' the marriage of pure minds.' " 



46 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



CHAPTER III. 

CONSECRATED TO CHRIST AND THE CHURCH. 

THE fruit of training in a Christian home, 
permeated by the traditions, methods, and 
proverbial characteristics of Scotch Presbyterian- 
ism, ripened early in the personal life of Robert 
Ross. The Rev. George VanDeurs, who is still 
living in Philadelphia, was pastor of the family 
at the time of his birth. The Rev. Wm. H. 
Sybrandt, under whose ministry he united with 
the church, has no recollection of having spoken 
to the youthful parishioner on that subject. He 
had watched the development of an attractive 
youth, but before he was aware, Robert was ready 
for church membership, and voluntarily presented 
himself. The candidate met the Session of the 
Oakwood Avenue Presbyterian Church, October 7, 
1885, and was received into full communion, and 
on the following Sabbath, October 11, made a 
public profession of his faith. The pastor's text 
that morning was Psalm 89:33 : "Nevertheless my 



CONSECRATED TO CHRIST 49 

loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, 
nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." The theme 
considered was the " Faithfulness of God." It is 
a theme worth recalling in the light of the reli- 
gious trust and faithfulness unto death of the 
solitary member thus received. He had been in 
the Sabbath School since childhood. He came 
into the church intelligently, deliberately, sin- 
cerely, and freely. He was always a faithful 
member of it, regular in his attendance morning 
and evening, and a liberal contributor to its sup- 
port. His membership covered about eight and 
one-half years. 

The church with which he united was organized 
and its edifice dedicated in the very year that he 
was born. It is on the corner of Tenth and Hoo- 
sick Streets in the northeastern and hilly part of 
the city. The manse adjoining it was built in 
1892. In the belfry of the church is a memorial 
bell given by John Sherry, one of Troy's success- 
ful merchants, in memory of his wife. The bells 
manufactured in Troy are heard all over the world. 
In this city was cast the famous Liberty bell of 
the Chicago Exposition. 

The life of the church and the life of Robert 



50 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

were parallel, chronologically considered, down to 
the date of his death. It was an off-shoot from 
the First Presbyterian Church on First Street, and 
had its origin in a Sunday-school formed on Tenth 
Street by elder A. H. Graves of that church dur- 
ing the pastorate of the Rev. Marvin R. Vincent, 
D.D., now professor in Union Theological Semi- 
nary, New York City, and the honorary pastorate 
of the famous Rev. N. S. S. Beman, D.D. 

George Ross, father of Robert, was one of the 
seven deacons chosen when the church was 
organized. He afterward served as an elder. Its 
members belong to those whom Abraham Lincoln 
honorably designated as " the plain people." 

They are industrious, energetic, enterprising, 
and prosperous. Robert was well aware of the 
standing of all the churches in Troy, but he never 
left Oakwood for a larger or richer church. 

The Presbyterian churches of the city have 
been strong in their " Young People's Christian 
Unions " for numbers and work accomplished. 
They have been reluctant or slow, because of this 
fact, to re-organize as Societies of Christian En- 
deavor. The Union in the Oakwood Avenue 
Church is an illustration of the rule. Robert 



CONSECRATED TO CHRIST. 5 1 

Ross identified himself with several organizations 
of young people in the church and in the city, for 
both sexes and for males only, such as the Union 
already referred to, the Brotherhood of Andrew 
and Philip, the Y. M. C. A., North Troy, and the 
R. R. Y. M. C. A. He was favorable to the re- 
organization of the Union as a Society of Chris- 
tian Endeavor, which was effected November 23, 
1893. 

All the societies referred to are branches, sub- 
divisions of the church, spiritual organizations for 
spiritual ends. They are ecclesiastical, not secular 
nor political. They are open to church-members 
only, as active members ; in effect open to all the 
young, save as differentiated by sex. They are 
not secret. Robert was an active member, a 
participant by accepting offices, engaging in 
public exhortation and prayer, contributing to- 
ward expenses and beneficences, and sharing the 
activities and responsibilities of varied forms of 
Christian work. Every Trojan who ever knew 
Henry Sherrill, of the Second Presbyterian 
Church, will think of the two as belonging to 
the same spiritual type. 

The Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip is, 



52 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

therefore, a young men's organization in the local 
church, with national and inter-denominational 
affiliations. It was organized in Reading, Penn., 
in May, 1888, by Rev. Rufus W. Miller; and in 
the Oakwood Avenue Church in Troy, February 
26, 1 88 1. Robert joined it as a charter member. 
It is religious, Christian, Protestant, denomina- 
tional, and inter-denominational. Each denomi- 
nation has its own Brotherhood, made up of the 
chapters within its own body. No chapter can be 
organized without the consent of the pastor or 
officials in charge of a congregation. 

Every man desiring to become a member must 
pledge himself to obey the rules of the Brother- 
hood so long as he shall be a member. These 
rules are the rule of prayer: to pray daily for the 
spread of Christ's kingdom among young men and 
for God's blessing upon the labors of the Brother- 
hood ; also the rule of service : to make an earnest 
effort each week to bring at least one young man 
within hearing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as 
set forth in the services of the church, young 
people's prayer-meetings, and young men's Bible- 
classes. 

The object and rules were adopted from the 



CONSECRATED TO CHRIST. 53 

Brotherhood of St. Andrew, in, the Protestant 
Episcopal Church. 

The Badge is a button, made of various mate- 
rials, but always in the colors red, orange, and 
black ; the star being the symbol suggested by 
the 

MOTTO OF THE BROTHERHOOD : 

<<( 3ntf trjeg tJjat be forise sfjall sfjme as trjc brightness of trje 
firmament; antJ tfjen trjat turn mang to righteousness, as tfje 
stars for eocr ano erjer." 

Daniel xii. 3. 

The three colors in combination are derived from 
the national emblems of the countries in which 
the Protestant Reformation arose — Germany and 
Switzerland — and of the Netherlands, whose 
glorious eighty years' struggle for civil and reli- 
gious freedom and for gospel truth was for the 
benefit of the whole world. 

The chapter in the Oakwood Avenue Presby- 
terian Church has been accustomed to meet every 
Sabbath morning after the morning service and 
hold a prayer meeting. Robert Ross was present 
at the meeting held on the last Sabbath morning 
of his life, and knelt and offered prayer. His 



54 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

pastor's reminiscences are peculiarly interesting 
at this point. Mr. Sybrandt says : 

" Our subject was the topic used by the Chris- 
tian Endeavor Society in the evening, and found 
in the eighth chapter of Romans. (Rom. viii. 
12-17, 3 I- 39) I called attention to one verse in 
the chapter. 'For I reckon that the sufferings 
of this present life are not worthy to be com- 
pared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.' 
The last one to pray before myself was Robert 
Ross. . . . He prayed that he might be guided 
to know and do his duty at the coming elec- 
tion." 

That simple scene, in the light of subsequent 
events, becomes sublime. It reminds us of the 
Ironsides of Cromwell preparing for battle by 
prayer. 

His prayer was answered to the letter. The 
reason for giving these facts, aside from their 
interest and historic value in illustration of the 
life of a hero and martyr, will appear in a later 
chapter. It is easy to see that the society and its 
badge would naturally attract him. It is not easy 
to see how any one could misconceive the facts, 
except through gross ignorance, stupidity, or 
malice, so as to endeavor to identify him with 



CONSECRATED TO CHRIST 55 

an alleged political-religious secret society, the 
" A. P. A.," or American Protective Association, 
now very much in evidence in all parts of the 
United States, and introduced again and again 
into the conditions that ended his life, and into 
the proceedings in court, in the trial of Bartholo- 
mew Shea as his murderer. 

Pure and undefiled religion had the first place 
in the expression of Robert's nature and in the 
proportioning of his time and labors in behalf of 
the church. He was fond of amusements, of 
affording entertainment for others ; but he did 
not reduce the church, as a means or an end, to 
the rank of a social club. He did not cease 
to cultivate himself, physically and mentally, 
when he withdrew from school into business ; yet 
he did not transform the church into an evening 
school nor a parlor for society. He had the 
power and the taste for self-culture. He used his 
gifts freely and incessantly for the benefit of 
others. He was always losing his own life ; but 
on the principle revealed and formulated by Jesus 
of Nazareth, he was finding it again in the lives 
of others. To say so is to narrate history, not 
to indulge in eulogy. 



56 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

The ninth anniversary of the Young People's 
Christian Union of his church occurred Sabbath 
evening, November 25, 1891. His elocutionary 
gifts were utilized on that occasion in the recita- 
tion of a sacred poem which had been published 
in the New York Observer. It was entitled 

"THERE IS BUT ONE BOOK." 

(From the last .words of Sir Walter Scott.) 
BY MRS. AGNES E. MITCHELL. 

Fetch me the Buke, dear Lockhart, 

An' gie me ane sweet ward. 

What buke? there is nae ither, — 

The Life o' th' Incarnate Lord; 

I feel the shadows creepin' : 

My licht's nae burnin' lang, 

Sae read frae the blessit gospels 

A bit, chiel, ere I gang; 

Fin' whaur He holpit the needy, 

His pity wi' His micht ! — 

Oh, my soul's fair hungry, Lockhart, 

For the Livin' Bread, the nicht; 

I think o' the dear disciples 

Sae tassit on the sea, 

An' the wards he spak' tae Simon, — 

I ken they'd comfort me; 

Tell o' the chitterin' sparrows, — 

" Nae wan o' them can fa'; " 



CONSECRATED TO CHRIST 57 



Tell hoo he callit the bairnies, — ■ 
The dearest thocht o' a'; 
Read owre hoo the ravin' tempest 
Seekit silence i' the deep; 
Sae the surges i' my bosom 
Are croonin' a' tae sleep; 



Ye maun catch the roll o' Jordan 
I' his wards tae the Pharisee, 
But ye'll hear him prayin', dearie, 
P the sough o' Galilee; 
Dinna fash 'bout Judas's kisses; 
Nae greet i' the garden dim, 
But joy hoo the dyin' beggar 
Foun' paradise wi' Him; 
Nae hent o' Thamas dootin', 
Nae ward hoo Peter fell; 
It grie's me, sair, — their weakness 
Wha ken't oor Lord sae weel; 



Read o' the walk tae Emmaus 

That long an' tearfu' day, 

An' lat oor hearts burn, Lockhart, 

As we gang the countrie way; 

Pluck me ane lily, Lockhart, 

A' siller-dewt an' sweet; 

I speer the rose o' Sharon, 

An' smell the growin' wheat; 

Lat's join the throngin', dearie. 

An' wait i' the wee bit ships 

For the wards, like beads o' honey, 

That fa' frae His haly lips; 



58 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



Hoo sad the gospels, Lockhart, 
Wi' His wand'rin', hameless life; 
But there's ane grief fetches comfort, 
Ane rest that comes o' strife; 
Noo tak' me, kin' gude Lockhart, — 
Aye tenner-true tae me ! — 
Oot wi' the dear disciples, 
" As far 's tae Bethany ;" 
I sair need rest, belov'd, 
An' the licht's a-wearin' dim; 
But heaven's nae far frae Bethany, 
An' sune I'll be wi' Him. 



The selection is Scotch throughout. The re- 
citer was of Scotch descent, and he rendered 
effectively the sentiment by his power to inter- 
pret the meaning through accurate and forcible 
utterance of the dialect. It would be a difficult 
task for a trained elocutionist who had not the 
Scotch twist in his tongue. 

When Robert was shot, he died without uttering 
a word. If, like his brother William, he had been 
wounded, and his sick chamber, unlike William's, 
had become his death chamber, we can easily 
imagine him uttering sentiments like those of the 
last verse of the preceding poem. Bethany was a 
hill-town. Troy is a hilly city. Ross's home was 
on one of the hill-sides, and in reality heaven for 



CONSECRATED TO CHRIST. 59 

him was not far away. Like Enoch, he walked 
with God, and in the midst of a deadly strife he 
soon was not ; for not only the cowardly, brutal 
assassin, but the all-controlling God took him. 

Wednesday evening, October 25, 1893, an en- 
tertainment was given in the Oakwood Avenue 
Presbyterian Church, to raise funds for sending 
two delegates to the Council of the Brotherhood 
of Andrew and Philip, in New York. It might 
be called " The Society of the Innocents," so far 
as itself or Robert Ross could be identified in any 
way, good, bad, or indifferent, with the "A. P. A." 
Or it might be called the two-letter society as dis- 
tinct from the three-letter " A. P. A.," or the 
several kindred four-letter societies, male and fe- 
male, like the « Y. P. C. U.," the " Y. M. C. A," 
the " W. C. T. U.," or the five-letter " Y. P. S. C. 
E." Not one of the societies named, except the 
" A. P. A.," is a secret society. 

The subject of the entertainment was "The 
White City " — the World's Fair in Chicago. 
" Seven Oakwooders " told what they saw and 
heard there, inclusive of the Ferris Wheel, the 
Moorish palace, Russian carriages, the dairy and 
stock-yard, agriculture, machinery, the battle-ship, 



6o A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



Lot's wife, the street of Cairo, the electric foun- 
tains, Buffalo Bill, humbugs, big valve, big tree, 
and big telescope. 

Robert had been one of the visitors and in- 
vestigators, and was one of the select seven who 
were to lecture and report in "Big Talks." His 
subject was the " Electric Fountains," fascinating 
to him as a master mechanic, and to all visitors and 
listeners. He gave a very interesting explanation 
of them. Sufficient money was raised for the 
purpose in hand. 

Such was Robert Ross, the alert, active boy; 
the agreeable, companionable youth ; the stalwart, 
full-grown man ; the earnest, exemplary, influential, 
loved, admired Christian ; a Timothy under the 
tuition of his parents, and in association with a 
minister of the gospel. His pastor never saw him 
angry. He was at the opposite extreme from that 
of the Pharisee. He identified religion and moral- 
ity. He did not divorce them so as to make the 
two contradictory to each other. 

If American Christian homes, the public schools 
and Sabbath-schools, and the varied Young Peo- 
ples' Societies produce one like him occasionally, 
they do well. If their united and co-operating 



CONSECRATED TO CHRIST 6 1 



forces can multiply the number by ten, or one 
hundred, or one hundred thousand, the advance- 
ment and regeneration of the nation will be accel- 
erated at a rapid rate, and soon the final Kingdom 
of God will be at hand. 



62 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MARTYRDOM AND TRANSFIGURATION. 

THERE were events that preceded the fated 
election day of March 6, that were prel- 
udes to the revealed heroism of the several male 
members of the Ross family and to the shooting 
of one of them and to the martyrdom of Robert. 
February 3, 1894, a " revolver caucus" was held, 
so called because of the use of revolvers to accom- 
plish election purposes through fraud and violence. 
It was held in the first election district, on the 
west side of River Street. Inside of the room 
was one John McGough, who claimed to be a Re- 
publican, manipulating votes. On the outside 
were Bartholomew Shea, Jerry Cleary, Owen 
Judge, and others of the same stamp. The cau- 
cus was Republican, but the men named were re- 
puted Democrats. They had no moral right to 
be there, and such as they will have no legal right 
hereafter if proposed State laws fixing penalties 
for such conduct are enacted and executed. Dem- 



MARTYRDOM AND TRANSFIGURATION. 6$ 



ocrats and residents in other wards voted. Re- 
peaters voted. Pistol politics were exhibited in 
attempts to prostitute the purity of the ballot. 

Stanley O'Keefe was at the caucus, but testified 
at the murder trial that he did not take an active 
part. 

" Did you vote ? " asked the counsel for the 
prosecution. 

"Yes, sir," was the reply. 
"Are you a Republican ?" 

"No, sir," replied the witness; and then, seeing 
his mistake, he said that in ward elections he was 
neutral. 

John H. Boland, a well-known citizen and busi- 
ness man, an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, de- 
manded that such voting should cease. John Ross 
was in the room. Turmoil ensued ; the crowd 
from the outside forced its way into the room, and 
" Bat " Shea ran out the back way with the ballot- 
box, covering his retreat with a revolver. 

When on the witness stand, he was asked, — 
"What use did you have for the ballot-box?" 
and he answered, " None." 
" What did you take it for ? " 
"For safe keeping." 



64 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



" How many more ballots were in the box when 
you returned it to McGough than before you got 
it : 

•• I didn't count them." 

The caucus related to the election of an alder- 
man. The ballot-box was returned, the caucus 
continued, and McGough and his assistant declared 
their candidate the successful candidate. Mean- 
while, the people opposed to the designers and 
iters, among whom were the Ross boys, held 
another caucus. 

T::eir father was choked at the election in No- 
vember, 1893. by a policeman, when Robert was 
ejected from the polls for challenging illegal voters, 
and the other Ross boys were driven away. 

The Rosses were determined, yet not defiant. 
Antagonism to themselves as citizens and Repub- 
licans was to be met by resistance, in the interests 
of a pure and protected ballot. They knew their 

rs nai rights and the common rights of citizens, 
and dared to maintain them. Hence they were 
hated. Cowardice or courage was their alterna- 
tive, and they showed courage. Submission or 
brigandage was the alternative of McGough and 
Shea, who were lawless and wicked enough to re- 



MARTYRDOM AXD TRAKSFIGURATIOa \ 

sort to further violence ; to carry firearms, and, in 

madness or desperation, to _ 

deadly aim and consequ -.-.-. 

meeting and test of both sides would be a: 

election a month later. The R sses : 

their lives were in danger. : 

cured cocobola sticks, ten and a half inches long, 

for defensive purposes, turned them at their own 

A distributed them among their co- 
ers. who were watcher - oils. Al : u 

of these sticks were distributed, but not all 
actually carried to the polls. R 3 had 

one, but en lost it when he fell in :. g 

One was used with good effc 

During the indiscrimi:. iring ol 

revolvers that occurred at noon. March 6. a re- 
volver shot flashed in the face o: ss : 
He turned, and saw a rev 
He threw up his hand and pushed up th e 
and : on exploded over his head. He 
his stick from his side 
sailant, .vho fell. Xo further attention « 
to the fallen assailant, because Robert had been 
shot, and needed and received attention. 

The lesal counsel that the Rosses had received 



66 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

was supported by the advice of Governor Flower, 
given to a committee of citizens who waited on 
him in Albany, on the day previous to election, 
that repeaters should be driven from the polls. 

The polling-place on election day was a one- 
story frame house on the eastern side of Orr 
Street, in North Troy. It stands by itself in the 
picture of its surroundings. Across the street is 
a gully filled with brush, the whole scene being 
then bare of verdure, owing to the season of the 
year. On election morning law-abiding citizens 
who knew the bravado and criminality of the 
roughs with whom they were dealing were early at 
the polls, determined by their presence, their num- 
bers, their character and reputation, to prevent 
illegal voting. The roughs were not over-awed. 
They too appeared, and carried concealed firearms, 
contrary to law. The Rosses did not carry fire- 
arms, even for defence. The watchers represented 
the Republican, Democratic, Socialist-Labor, and 
Prohibition parties. Neither McGough nor Shea 
were registered voters in the third district of the 
thirteenth ward. All the male members of the 
Ross family were registered voters in that ward 
and district. Between ten and eleven o'clock in 




: 




MARTYRDOM AND TRANSFIGURATION. 69 

the morning William Ross spoke to Martin Kane, 
a policeman who was off duty. As he did so, 
Shea reached over and struck him in the face. 
His younger brother John, diplomatic, but wise, 
said to him, "Take that; we don't want any 
trouble here." 

Repeaters voted on four names ; and the in- 
spector of election at the trial of Shea testified 
that he knew all four persons, and that the men 
who voted were not those persons. They were 
compelled to swear in their votes. They entered 
the polling-place in a line. The Democratic in- 
spectors did not challenge any voters. The name 
of William Armstrong was one of the names 
illegally voted on. He testified as follows, — 

" I got my ballots and went into the booth. I 
was folding the ballot-s when I heard my name 
called out. I then stepped out of the booth and 
faced a man, whom I asked, l Are you William 
Armstrong?' — 'Yes, I am,' said be. * Do you 
live at 53 Glen Avenue?* I asked. The man 
said he did ; but I told him he did not, for I 
was the only William Armstrong who lived there. 
I told the election officers not to take the vote, 
and then stepped back into the booth and com- 
pleted my ballots. When I went out to vote I 
was compelled to swear it in, some one having 
voted on my name." 



yo A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

Armstrong's vote was cast about half-past 
twelve o'clock. A fifth repeater, hearing the dis- 
charge of firearms on the outside, discontinued 
his attempt to vote, and escaped. 

The firing had been occasioned by the fact that 
a protest had been made by Ellis Hayner, a repre- 
sentative watcher, against the illegal voting. 
Hayner was struck; William Ross was shot in the 
back of the head, and did not see who shot him ; 
Robert Ross was murdered. He was bareheaded 
when shot. His face was turned to the west. 
Bartholomew Shea fired the fatal shot, standing 
within two feet of him. Robert had fallen while 
pursuing McGough, the assailant of his brother. 
Four or five months previously, on his way from 
Long Island City, where he had been engaged in 
putting a motor in a church organ, to Brooklyn, 
he crossed Newtown Creek. He was in a great 
hurry to keep an appointment he had made ; and, 
without waiting until the draw in the bridge upon 
which he had stepped had swung to its place, he 
jumped to the other part of the bridge, and 
sprained his ankle. He was laid up for a couple 
of weeks, and his ankle was left so weak that 
when he stepped upon a small stone it would 



MARTYRDOM AND TRANSFIGURATION. yi 

throw him down. It was still weak at the time 
of the tragedy. These facts probably account for 
his sinking to a sitting position. Shea took 
advantage of the situation, came close to him, 
and fired the fatal shot ; then escaped, and after- 
ward was arrested. He passed between William 
and Robert Ross while firing. John Ross was 
quick to reach Robert and minister to him ; and 
he exclaimed, " If there are American citizens 
here, arrest that man ! " meaning the fleeing mur- 
derer. One hundred people stood about the polls 
at the time of the tragedy. 

The firing was general and rapid from the 
crowd of roughs, a fusillade "sounding like a bunch 
of fire-crackers." From fifteen to twenty shots 
are supposed to have been fired. It seemed, said 
one witness, as if a Wild West show were in 
progress. Shea himself received a scalp wound. 
It could not have been made by Robert Ross, for 
he had no revolver. He was abundantly able to 
defend himself in tackle with most men ; he was 
conscious of the fact, and he acted accordingly. 
Hatred was not in his heart, except the right- 
eous anger against criminals and brutes, without 
which human nature is dehumanized and un- 
Christianized. 



a ::artyr of to-day. 



Dr. S. F. I g M.D., who made the post- 

mortem examination, has made many similar ex- 
aminations, but has never seen M a finer specimen 
of physical manhood than the dead man." 

We have given the :. uts, not as derived from 
rumor, nor from newspapers only, nor from the 
family and friends, but from legal proceedings, the 
coroner's inquest, and the trial of the murderer 
E x :ement followed as a matter of course. The 
:ts of the people, true as truth itself, dis- 
cerned instantly that Robert Ross was something 
more than a victim and an unfortunate ; that he 
: :. v blameless, but heroic and representa- 
that he had died for a principle, for the 
purity of elections, for an honest ballot in the 
voting and the counting, for the preservation of 
American ins: is. He was a martyr, "a bless- 

ed m His blood was sacrificial blood, and 

•juld make it the seed of municipal 
purification and reform. He died on Tuesday. 

The indignation meeting of Thursday evening 

I i funeral mi Friday afternoon. 

Twice, on successive days, the city paid its tribute 

of affection to its dead hero and its transfigured 

martyr. 



MARTYRDOM AXD TRANSFIGURA TIOl ' 



Troy has known the pomp and glorv of 
funerals, in the burial of I 

- - [86c Colonel Ellsworth 1 837-1 861 
Major-General George H. Thor. s -: ": 

General W .-s a her : : ; : 

the Mexican War, of Indian : our 

Civil War. Troy honored him br 
had opened a recrui: , ffice en a 

and had circi: : 
otic young men of the count and 

_ 5 then to avenge ^ngs 

committed on on . country, or die in 

attempt." Rot- that s ;h an 

appeal had come to him from God, and he d. 
the attempt to prevent and undo the wrongs com- 
mitted against his city and coun: 

Colonel E'.r.:er E.'s shot in 1861, 

at Alexandria, Va,, while hauli. lg 

flag as a former I 
but transient residence and e g _ . .ent in busi- 
ness. Frank Brownell, his ai eng 
Hence both men were bigl 

the remains issed 

through Troy on their Mechanics - XV. 

for buriaL 



74 A MARTYR OF TO-BAY. 

General George H. Thomas, " the Rock of 
Chickamauga," died in San Francisco in 1S70, and 
his body was brought to Troy for burial in beauti- 
ful Oakwood Cemetery, closely following that of 
General Wool to its last resting-place. President 
Grant and the members of his cabinet, Generals 
Sherman, Sheridan, and Meade, attended the 
funeral. 

Troy has known, also, the solemnity and awe 
and righteous but suppressed wrath attending the 
burial of a leading citizen and public official who 
was murdered. In 1867 Thomas H. Bailey, Chief 
Engineer of Hugh Ranken Steamer Company 
No. 2, was shot and killed without cause; and his 
funeral occurred from the same Second Presby- 
terian church as the funeral of Robert Ross. 
Similarly, it was attended by crowds far too 
numerous to secure admission into the church. 

It is with such men, and such mournful yet 
honoring and honorable conditions, that Robert 
Ross and his funeral and burial are to be classed ; 
yet from which his life and death are isolated 
and differentiated. He was a private citizen, the* 
youngest of those mentioned. They were all 
heroes, and he was a hero. Three were soldiers ; 



MARTYRDOM AND TRANSFIGURATION. 7$ 



but he was not a soldier. Two were firemen, and 
he was a fireman. But, strictly speaking, he alone 
was a martyr. His funeral was a civic funeral; 
and Trojans, irrespective of sect, political party, 
or social rank, were his mourners, save as his an- 
tagonists at the polls had sympathizers among 
men of their own class ; and a few political parti- 
sans sought to eliminate the thought of martyr- 
dom, by representing the result as due to partisan 
or religious strife, and a personal encounter be- 
tween a few individuals and ward factions. Sena- 
tor Murphy of the United States Senate, and a 
resident of Troy, regarded the killing and death 
as "deplorable." Less than that no one ought to 
say who believes in law and order, in human free- 
dom and righteousness. 

The funeral addresses were delivered by the 
Rev. Wm. H. Sybrandt and the Rev. James W. 
Ford. The address of the pastor of the deceased, 
the intimate friend of the living and the dead of 
the family, was brief but comprehensive. It out- 
lined Robert's youthful life, characterized him 
worthily, and drew the lessons of his career as 
teaching the manliness of true Christianity and 
the nobility of blameless and zealous Christian 



?6 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

citizenship. The family requested that there be 
no police protection at the funeral. The request 
was granted, and there was good order, notwith- 
standing the vast crowds. Likewise, at their re- 
quest, there was no band music. Boring's band 
had been engaged by the Republican club. The 
vocal and instrumental (organ) music was by the 
most gifted musicians of the city, members of 
the Mendelssohn quartet. Two brothers and four 
cousins of the deceased acted as pall-bearers. 
The Esek Bussey Fire Company, of which he was 
a member, was strongly represented at the funeral 
service and in the line of march. The Andrew 
and Philip Brotherhood wore their colors, red, 
orange, and black. The organ loft was draped 
with the American flag ; the pulpit with mourn- 
ing and patriotic emblems. The tolling of the 
church bell could be heard by the murderer con- 
fined in the Troy jail. 

The burial was in Oakwood Cemetery, one of 
the most beautiful cemeteries in the country. It 
is not far from the scenes of the martyr's entire 
life. It commands extensive prospects of the 
surrounding country. It contains the Gardner 
Earl Memorial Chapel, a beautiful and imposing 



MARTYRDOM AND TRANSFIGURATION. ? g 



Romanesque structure, whose tower is as con 
sp.cuous as the cluster of towers on the Roman 
Cathohc Theological Seminary, and equally con- 
sp.cuous in arresting the attention of travellers 
in entering or leaving the city. 

The monument that contains the portrait of 
Kobert ,s a family monument owned by his father 
and his uncle, Adam Ross. The flowers that 
env.ron it tell their own story. The inscriptions 
bespeak the love of his nearest kindred, and of 
his youthful associates in the Brotherhood of 
Andrew and Philip, and in soeia]> ^^ ^ 
religious life. Among them was a beautiful 
wreath, bearing the familiar name « Rob " in im 
mortelles, sent by his intended bride. They tell 
how "He Stood for His Rights," as a man and 
an American. They record that he died as a 
"martyr." The cross on which the Saviour died 
whose atonement he accepted, is repeatedly sym- 
bolized. The flag that he revered as the emblem 
of his country is in the foreground and in the 
background. The dove, emblem of the Spirit of 
God, as the life of the spirit of man, and the gen- 
erator of holiness in men, is pictured with -real 
beauty and reverence. The whiteness of his° life 



80 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

is symbolized by the entire collection of flowers 
and groups of designs. The wreath and the harp 
are suggestive of his condition and occupation in 
the regions of bliss and immortality. The grave 
of his sister Jennie, who, in 18S7 and in her 
sixteenth year, died of slow fever, is concealed ; 
but they who were united to Christ in life, and 
who are asleep in Jesus, are reunited, we may be 
sure, where " there shall be no more death," no 
more sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. 

The burial is not only in a beautiful cemetery 
and location, but in comparatively close neighbor- 
hood with two of the nation's great generals 
whom we have named. The monument to Gen- 
eral Wool is the most conspicuous of the numer- 
ous monuments that adorn the city of the dead, 
and silently teach the lessons of the life that is 
life indeed. It consists of a stately monolith, 
seventy-five feet in height. 

The inscription was composed by William Cul- 
len Bryant, — 

" THIS STONE IS ERECTED TO 

MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL, 

THE GALLANT SOLDIER, 

THE ABLE COMMANDER, AND THE PATRIOTIC CITIZEN, 

DISTINGUISHED IN MANY BATTLES." 



MARTYRDOM AND TRANSFIGURATION. 8 1 



The monument to General Thomas, in another 
part of the extensive grounds, is a finely sculp- 
tured sarcophagus, surmounted with a granite 
American eagle, grasping in its talons an accurate 
representation of the sword used by him and with 
which he obtained renown during the war. 

A suitable monument appropriate in design will 
be erected to Robert Ross, probably not in the 
cemetery nor on the spot where he was killed. A 
tablet on an inscribed stone will be sufficient for 
the latter place. -The Robert Ross Memorial 
Association" of Troy ladies was organized in 
Music Hall, Monday, March 26, and is now 
rapidly collecting funds, securing designs, and 
site, and will ultimately dedicate a bronze statue. 1 
^ Seminary Park was selected by the associa- 
tion, but refused by a tie vote of the Park Com- 
missioners. It is an eminently desirable place in 
the heart of the city. The monument would be 
only two blocks distant from the splendid Sol- 
diers' and Sailors' Monument on Washington 
Square, which commemorates the record of the 
men of Rensselaer County, New York, who took 
part in the Civil War of 1861-65. Its naval 

1 See Note, page 86. 



82 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

scene on one of the sides in the lower stone-work, 
in bronze bas-reliefs, represents an engagement 
between the floating batteries, "The Monitor" 
and "The Merrimac," because two Trojans, John 
A. Griswold and John F. Winslow, obtained for 
Capt. John F. Ericsson, the contract for the con- 
struction of "The Monitor," and with Cornelius 
S. Bushnell of New Haven assumed the heavy re- 
sponsibility of securing the government against 
all loss of money, if the vessel should prove un- 
serviceable or incomplete. 

A monument to Mrs. Emma Willard, the princi- 
pal of the famous Troy Female Seminary, is to be 
erected in Seminary Park. A monument to the 
Rev. N. S. S. Beman, D.D., a clergyman of na- 
tional reputation, and for a generation a leader in 
the Presbyterian Church in the United States, 
ought to be erected there. One of the parks of 
the city is already named after him. 

The court-house in which the murderer of 
Robert Ross was tried and convicted faces Semi- 
nary Park. There was poetic justice in securing 
the verdict on the eve of the Fourth of July ; for 
he was a martyr to the cause of human liberty. 
If the statue of Robert Ross should face toward 



MARTYRDOM AND TRANSFIGURATION. 85 



the court-house, in gratitude for the accomplish- 
ment of the ends of justice, and in appeal for the 
enforcement of all laws, especially those intended 
to secure a pure ballot and to punish the violators 
of the laws of the suffrage, the proprieties would 
be suitably observed. But another location must 
be chosen. 

An appropriate conclusion of this narrative of 
pathetic and tragic facts which redound to the 
glory of Robert Ross, and the credit and dis- 
credit of Troy, is the following poem by John C. 
Ball, published in The Troy Times, April 3, 

IN MEMORIAM — ROBERT ROSS. 

BY JOHN C. BALL. 

A hero slain ! His sacred ashes rest 

Where Oakwood's silence urns the hallowed dead, 

In beauty near Troy's high industrial walls. 

Slain ! Slain for what? Slain for fair Freedom's sake ! 

Sad kinship weeps, a city's heart is stirred 

With deep emotion, a great commonwealth, 

Ay, a nation for a martyred son 

Trembles from centre to circumference, 

And queries, Why, O God, this sacrifice? 

A hundred years a nation ! This freedom? 

The freedom which our fathers bought with blood, 

That all inheritors should be to life, 

Liberty, and pursuit of happiness? 

O Freedom, thy fair name is writ in blood ! 



86 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



To espouse thy beauty is to win thee, 
By force of arms: and then to hold thee fast 
From ravishment still costs the price of blood. 
Freedom, fair goddess of the human heart ! 
Thou priceless gift the soul of man esteems — 
E'en death with thee amid dread war's alarms 
Is counted gain, for then no slavery is; 
And yet, to live and own thee as a guest, 
Perpetual 'neath each roof-tree in the land, 
Each loyal heart desires. For this brave Ross 
Upon thine altar shed his loyal blood; 
And men and women weep. 

Hail, goddess fair ! 
Thy votaries rear upon thine altared hills 
Their heart's memorial to the loyal brave 
Who gave his fresh young life a sacrifice. 
We raise no bleeding hecatomb, nor pyre 
Of sacrificial flame to unknown gods; 
But to the God of justice and of right, 
To thee, fair goddess — thou his gift to man — 
And to Robert Ross — a martyred freeman — 
We give the tribute of our grateful hearts. 

Troy, N.Y., March 26, 1894. 

NOTE. 

About ten well-known artists, several of whom are ladies, will sub- 
mit models by the first Tuesday in October, and from these, one will be 
selected. The successful artist will secure the commission, while a prize 
of $250 will be given for the second best design, and another of #150 for 
the third best. 



COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY. 8y 



CHAPTER V. 

COMMITTEE OF ONE HUNDRED FOR PUBLIC 
SAFETY. 

DEFORE Robert Ross was buried, the citizens 
L> of Troy had assembled in mass meetings, 
to commemorate his death and to institute meas- 
ures for the safety not only of the lives of other 
citizens, but the security and welfare of the city 
itself. More than one man had been shot. More 
than two men had been fired at. More than three 
men had been threatened. More than four were 
regarded as in danger of their lives. The friends 
of several clergymen accompanied them for a 
number of days, knowing more than the clergy- 
men themselves how numerous were the threats 
made against them, and how base and rash were 
the roughs who threatened. 

The citizens' meetings were held in the Second 
Presbyterian and Second Baptist Churches on 
Fifth Avenue. In reality they were one meeting, 
and the addresses were repeated. Hon. Martin 



A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



I. Townsend, ex-Congressman, the Gladstone of 
Troy, characterized it as the grandest meeting 
which had ever been held in Troy during his ex- 
perience of fifty years. Probably there has been 
not a single meeting in the city, of great public 
moment, for half a century, that he has not at- 
tended and in which he has not borne a promi- 
nent part. He is still "the old man eloquent" 
and witty. 

The fact that the meeting was held so promptly 
was significant, itself an evidence of the revival 
of the Trojan spirit of earlier and better days. 
Before Fort Sumter was fired on in 1861, as soon 
as some of the Southern States had passed or- 
dinances of secession, a number of Trojans vol- 
unteered their services to preserve the Federal 
Union, January 2, 1861. They formed an infantry 
company January n, '61, "in anticipation" of the 
necessities that might arise from a rupture in 
civil affairs ; and " The Freeman Cadets " was 
the first purposely organized body of local sol- 
diery north of Mason and Dixon's line to take 
part in the war inaugurated several months later. 
Troy sent the second regiment of the State to the 
war ; and Capt. John W. Armitage's Company, on 



COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY. 89 

Thursday, April 18, 1861, tendered its services to 
Governor Morgan, the first company offered to and 
accepted by the State under President Lincoln's 
call for troops made on the previous Monday. 

The speakers were representative men, in the 
pulpit, at the bar, and in business. They avowed 
that henceforth by the process of rebellion against 
tyranny and corruption, citizens should be free 
from brutality, from the audaciously illegal and 
perjured voter, from one-man power centralized in 
a political boss, and from the horde of illiterate, 
cheap, and crafty officials who had become lodged 
in the various branches of the city government. 
The Rev. L. M. S. Haynes, D.D., pastor of the 
First Baptist Church, characterized Robert Ross 
as a martyr as follows, — 

"Thirty-two years ago the ninth day of August 
next, I was standing at the head of my battery on 
a little hillock facing Cedar Mountain in the State 
of Virginia. By my side stood a brave boy of 
nineteen summers in charge of one of the guns. 
Without a moment's warning, in the height of the 
battle, a shell from the enemy's side struck the 
lad on the side of the head, tearing it nearly off, 
and he fell at my feet a martyr for the cause of 
human liberty ; and I declare to-night to you that 



90 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

Robert Ross, a brave, Christian, industrious, be- 
nevolent young man, was just as much a martyr 
as Nelson Phillips." 

With equal clearness it was discerned and 
asserted that Shea was a representative man, — 
the representative of corruption in politics, of 
bossism and brutality, of the completed products 
of the saloon. The ruling politician of the city 
for a decade and a half has been Edward Murphy, 
Jr., now Junior U. S. Senator of the State of 
New York. He was alderman of Troy in 1865, 
fire commissioner from 1874 to 1879, mayor from 
1875 to 1882. He has been a brewer since 1867, 
his establishment containing all the modern in- 
ventions and conveniences for malting and brew- 
ing ale and porter. His business has induce 1 
him to foster the multiplication of saloons, to 
increase the sale of liquors, to be identified with 
the wholesale and retail liquor traffic. In politics, 
he has pressed the button, and the saloon and the 
police have done the rest. This will explain why 
the Rev. Eben Halley, D.D., spoke as follows, — 

"I have lived in Troy eight years, and I have 
had young women come to me who were turned 
out of their places as school-teachers ; and they 



COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY. 9 1 

1 have said, ' Dr. Halley, what can you do for me ? ' 
and I have said, ' I can do nothing.' They have 
gone to the school commissioners, and they could 
do nothing ; but the school commissioners have 
said, 'You must go to the brewery;' and so we 
have found men who had influence at the brewery, 
and those teachers were retained in their positions. 
I have lived in this city, and I have seen it roll up 
a fraudulent majority. I have seen it roll up a 
fraudulent vote of three thousand five hundred, 
and you all know how that vote was secured." 

At the conclusion of this meeting, a Committee 
of One Hundred for Public Safety was appointed. 
It was composed of representatives of the reli- 
gion, the culture, the business, the enterprise, of 
the city, and of opposing faiths in religion and 
politics. Hence it was non-partisan. Partisan- 
ship under such conditions as then prevailed is 
treason. 

The Rev. Theophilus P. Sawin, pastor of the 
First Presbyterian Church, in addressing the 
meeting of the ladies in Music Hall, where 
the "Robert Ross Monument Association" ori- 
ginated, said, " On this issue (legal and pure 
elections) all honest men are Catholic in their 
desire for universal right, and all are Protestant 
in their warfare against wrong." 



92 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

Senator Murphy was not appointed on the 
committee, but his parish priest, the Rev. Peter 
Havermans, was appointed. Father Haver.mans 
is to the Roman Catholicism of Troy what Hon. 
Martin I. Townsend has been to its civic life. 
He is nearly ninety years of age. He was the 
second Roman Catholic priest in the United 
States to manifest his own loyalty and that of his 
parishioners, in 1861, by hoisting a United States 
flag on the steeple of St. Mary's Church, and he 
kept it floating there until the close of the war. 
He has freely fraternized with Protestants. 

Ex-Director of the Rensselaer Polytechnic In- 
stitute, David M. Greene, Civil Engineer, has 
been the chairman of the committee. Its meet- 
ings have been secret and its proceedings con- 
fidential. Its work, in part, has consisted in 
aiding the legal prosecution of the murderer of 
Robert Ross, associating itself with the muni- 
cipal reform movement throughout the State and 
the nation through the Municipal and Lyceum 
Leagues, the City and Civic and Good Govern- 
ment Clubs. The committee was represented in 
the national organization that was formed in New 
York City, May 28 and 29. A large delegation 



COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY. 93 

of the committee visited New York, April 18, by 
special invitation, and two of its legal members, 
Seymour Van Santvoord and George B. Welling- 
ton, addressed the City and Good Government 
Clubs. Attorney Wellington spoke as follows of 
election methods in Troy : — 

" For fifteen years, at least, there has not been an 
honest election in the city of Troy — city, county, 
State, or national. Within a circle, of which Troy 
might be considered a centre, with a radius of nine 
miles, there has been a number of elections in 
which enough fraudulent votes were cast to change 
the election of a president of the United States, 
and State officials in every department of our State 
service, not excluding the judiciary. The nature 
of the crimes committed you know, but I will enu- 
merate them : Voting on names of persons not 
electors within the district ; repeating, i.e., voting 
on the names of electors a number of times ; stuff- 
ing ballot boxes ; stealing ballot boxes and substi- 
tuting others with ballots therein not cast ; false 
counting ; falsifying the returns ; and bribery. 
Repeating, technically so-called, is of compara- 
tively recent origin, . . . that is, voting twice, 
thrice, four times on a single name. ... In some 
districts last fall the votes of repeaters, demonstra- 
bly such, were equal to at least twenty-five per 
cent of the lawful vote cast. . . . Every attempt 
to correct the evil has met with vigorous opposi- 



94 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

tion. There is an organization in Troy which sup- 
ports with its influence and its money this evil. 
. . . Repeaters are given names to vote on and 
are told the residences they are to claim. Who 
instructs them ? There is a common aim among a 
miserable lot of criminals of low intellectual order, 
scattered through a city strange to many of them, 
to violate the law, which they do without hin- 
drance. They are paid for their work. They 
have their guides and instructors. The guides 
act with a common design. ... It is the guilt 
of bribery that has made cowards of many of our 
citizens and has made criminally inefficient many 
of our officials. 

" The power which has ruled us has controlled 
absolutely every department of our city and county 
government. During all the years that have been 
filled with open, boastful crimes against our liber- 
ties, not a single conviction was ever had in our 
county for an offence against the ballot until this 
spring, when one man pleaded guilty to an in- 
dictment for false voting, and was sent to the 
penitentiary. During that period not a single 
indictment was ever found for election crimes 
until this spring, when two indictments were found 
out of over thirty cases, which were in every re- 
spect complete. Indeed, it became impossible to 
get a grand jury drawn according to the statute." 

The charge of bribery is serious enough ; but it 
is not the most serious charge that has been made 



COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY. 95 

against "the powers that be" in Troy, and of 
whom it can hardly be said with truth, that they 
are ordained of God. During the trial of the mur- 
derer of Robert Ross, the charge of conspiracy 
was made by the prosecution, conspiracy between 
politicians and roughs, against the lives of the 
watchers of the polls in the 13th ward on election 
day. 

Mrs. Thomas A. Titus testified that on that day 
she stood near a barn on Douw Street, not far 
from the polling-place, and heard a conversation 
while she stood there. 

Six persons were together in a group, one man 
standing against the barn and the other five sur- 
rounded him. Mrs. Titus testified as follows : — 

" I stood six feet away from them with my back 
turned. Two of the six men were Shea and Mc- 
Gough. I heard the men say, 'We'll slug them.' 
' Kill them, and twenty-five dollars is yours ! ' 

" Then I heard a man say, ' Well, slug them and 
kill them if you can, and twenty-five dollars is 
yours.' I heard one of the men say, 'How do I 
know I'll get my money ?' To this the man who 
stood against the barn answered, ' Your money 
will be waiting for you when the work is done.' 
The men then went over in the direction of the 
polling- place." 



g6 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

The deliberation with which Shea shot Ross was 
terrible ; but here is evidence that seems to be 
proof, that he did it for a price, and a small one. 
The assistant-district attorney compared him to 
Judas, who not only betrayed Jesus, but did it for 
thirty pieces of silver. 

The Committee of Public Safety prepared a bill 
which was passed by the State legislature, that 
legislated out of office the entire Troy police force 
— commissioners, chief, captains, sergeants, detec- 
tives, and patrolmen ! No person who had not been 
a citizen of the United States five years was to be 
eligible to appointment on the force, or who had 
ever been convicted of crime, or who could not read 
and write the English language understandingly. 
A clause provided that it should be the duty of 
every member of the force to arrest repeaters 
on election day without a warrant, and that at 
least five days prior to every election the super- 
intendent should issue an order so instructing the 
officers. 

While it was in charge of Governor Flower, for 
his signature or veto, the committee delivered to 
him, Monday, April 23, a communication, urging 
him to sign it, on the ground of the inefficiency of 




Judge Williams, who sentenced the Murderer ot Robert Ross. 

Published in the Troy Times. Reproduced by permission. 



COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY. 



97 



the police and the insecurity of life and property 
under their charge. 

The following illustrations of inefficiency and 
insecurity were given, inclusive of direct reference 
to issues and conditions resulting from the death 
of Robert Ross : — 

"(i.) On April 19, about four o'clock in the 
afternoon, m a place of business on Fourth Street 
within two blocks of police headquarters, near* 
the heart of the city, a reputable merchant was 
shot down m his office by two thieves, who en- 
tered and attempted to rob the safe. After the 
shooting the thieves passed into the street and 
escaped In their flight through the city they 
traversed a distance of over a mile, and were pur- 
sued by a large concourse of people ; but not a 
policeman was seen in the entire course of the 
flight The thieves were armed, and at intervals 
fired at their pursuers. Their victim died the 
following morning, but the criminals have not vet 
been arrested. y 

"(2.) On the r6th of the month a man named 
L,ee, employed m a collar manufactory on River 
Street, the main thoroughfare of Troy, was stand- 
ing m the doorway of the factory, in broad day- 
light He was fired at by two men, who, after 
shooting drove away. The intended victim was 
not hit, but the bullet lodged near him in the cas- 
ing of the door. No arrests have been made 



o8 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



Mr. Lee was a witness against Shea at the Ross 

inquest. . . 

"(3.) On Wednesday evening of this week, 
about half -past nine, a woman was assaulted on 
Pawling Avenue, one of the principal suburban 
streets. She was thrown down and her clothing 
was torn, but her assailant was driven away by a 
citizen who was passing. No arrest has been 
made in this case. 

" (4.) A few days ago a respectable citizen of 
the thirteenth ward, passing to his home late in 
the evening, was intercepted and pursued by ruf- 
fians, and was obliged to take refuge in the house 
of a neighbor, and remained there all night. This 
gentleman was also a witness against Shea at the 
Ross inquest. 

"The above occurrences have all taken place 
within ten days, in the most populous and fre- 
quented sections of the city. All the criminals 
are at large." 

Governor Flower vetoed the bill, partly on ac- 
count of his own " supposition" that the bill was 
not wanted by a majority of the people of Troy. 
An interesting cartoon relating to himself and 
Senator Murphy was published in Judge, March 
24, and an equally suggestive one relating to 
the Senator and Shea in Frank Leslie's Illustrated 
Weekly, March 22, entitled "Victim, Culprit, 
Criminal." 



UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES. 



99 



CHAPTER VI. 

UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES. 

CIVE times the name of Ross has been promi- 
A nent in the history of this nation. First 
came Mrs. John Ross, familiarly known as 
-Betsy," who, with the co-operation of Gen. 
George Washington, made the first American 
flag ; next Colonel George Ross, who signed the 
Declaration of Independence ; then in the War of 
1812, General Robert Ross; then Charlie Ross, 
the lost boy; and then Robert Ross of Troy, the 
Martyr ! Attention was called to the facts at the 
funeral of Robert Ross, by the Rev. Wm. H. 
Sybrandt. Three times out of the five the name 
has appeared conspicuously as the name of pa- 
triots—colonial, national, and municipal patriots. 
"Betsy" Ross contributed her skill, her inge- 
nuity, her superior taste, her poetic and vocal 
powers, her loyal enthusiasm, to the welfare of 
the country. She was the most artistic uphol- 
steress in the land in the period covered by the 



OO A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



struggle for American Independence, using the 
best° quality of silks and satins, and originating 
designs that were proofs of the possession of 
artistic taste and ability. She was a Friend, or 
Quaker, residing in Philadelphia, a city conspicu- 
ous in the entire history of the period. She made 
and partially designed the stars and stripes, the 
first star-spangled banner that ever floated on 
the breeze. The house in which she did the 
work is still standing, No. 239 Arch Street, a 
little two-story attic tenement, first occupied by 
Mrs. Ross after she became a widow. 

Colonel George Ross, her brother-in-law, a mem- 
ber of the Continental Congress and a signer 
of the Declaration of Independence, was a mem- 
ber of a Congressional committee that in June, 
1776, accompanied by General George Washing- 
ton, called upon her, and engaged her to make the 
flag from a rough drawing, which, according to 
her suggestions, was redrawn by Washington 
with pen and pencil, then and there, in her mod- 
est back parlor. The flag as there designed was 
adopted by Congress. Mrs. Ross became flag- 
maker for the government, and continued the 
work for more than fifty-five years. There is 



UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES 



IOI 



on record an order on the treasury department 
"to pay Betsy Ross fourteen pounds twelve shil- 
lings and threepence for flags for the fleet in the 
Delaware River." 

Her daughters succeeded to the work, and be- 
came known as the most patriotic ladies in the 
land. Our country had no name until she marked 
upon her flags, -The United States of America" 
Quaker as she was, she refused to be silent, and 
she exclaimed, -My voice shall be devoted to 
God and my country, and whenever the Spirit 
moves me, I'll sing and shout for liberty." She 
sang to the volunteers her own « War Song for 
Independence." 

The red stripes in the design for The Fla- 
were emblematic of fervency and zeal; the white 
of integrity and purity; the blue field, with stars, 
of unity, power, and glory. They might be con- 
strued as typical of the patriotic record and per- 
sonal character of those members of the Ross 
family that have lived, suffered, or died for their 
country. The beauty and sentiment of the artis- 
tic woman, inwrought into the design and colors 
of the flag, have been a vital power in inspiring 
patriotic sentiment from the very origin of Amer- 
ican Independence until now. 



102 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

Colonel George Ross, born in Delaware, served 
without pay in the colonial legislature of Penn- 
sylvania, eo-operated with William Penn in behalf 
of the Indians, was a member of Congress and 
a signer of the Declaration of Independence. 
One historian says that in every leading measure 
in favor of freedom he was a leading man. 

At Bladenburg, Md., in 1S14, General Robert 
Ross, commanding four thousand veterans of 
the British army, encountered Gen. William H. 
Winder. He landed his troops below the city, 
and commenced marching on it, while the British 
fleet prepared for the bombardment of Fort Mc- 
Henry. From the fort a little vessel came glid- 
ing down the bay, bearing a flag of truce, and 
heading for the flagship of the British squadron. 
It was guided by Francis Scott Key, going to 
intercede for a friend who had been taken pris- 
oner. He was detained, saw the bombardment of 
the fort, September 13, 14; and when he saw the 
flag survive the bombardment, was impelled to 
write what proved to be a national song, " The 
Star Spangled Banner." 

What's in a name? What a contrast between 
the British Robert Ross, the soldier of 18 14, and 



UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES. 103 



the young American Robert Ross, the civilian 
of 1894, exactly threescore years later ! The one 
fired on the American flag, and if possible would 
have been shot on the spot. The other appropri- 
ated it as the dearest symbol of love of country, 
with which his heart was full. 

There is no need of mentioning further the 
name of Charlie Ross, except to note that he 
too was a Philadelphian, like his ancestral name- 
sakes and remote relatives, a child of the very 
home of early patriotism, next to the capital of 
the nation. 

Robert Ross had ordered several dozens of 
the national flag, to be used by himself and his 
associate watchers on election day ; but these 
unfortunately did not arrive until after he was 
shot, or he would have died decorated with the 
national colors. His solitary act recalls the early 
days of the war, when, because the flag had been 
hauled down at Sumter, it went up in North- 
ern cities, towns, and villages, and women wore 
miniature banners on their bonnets, and men 
carried emblems in breastpins and countless other 
devices. 

The martyrdom itself, and the nobly sentimen- 



104 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

tal use and inspiration of " Old Glory," quickly 
induced Presbyterian pastors and Sabbath-schools 
in Troy to decorate their Sabbath-school rooms 
permanently with the national colors. Before 
the month of March was concluded, two flags 
were presented to the Westminster Presbyterian 
Sabbath-school in Troy, as permanent ornamen- 
tal features of the school, and as an inspiration 
to youthful religious patriotism. The pastor of 
the church, Rev. George Fairlee, had suggested 
such a general movement in a sermon, and his 
own people adopted it within two weeks. 

Similar events occurred in the Woodside Presby- 
terian Church and Sabbath-school in South Troy, 
of which the Rev. Arthur Allen is pastor. It is 
located at the opposite extreme of the city from 
the Oakwood or Westminster churches. In an 
editorial on the local situation, the Troy Times of 
March 26, 1894, said, — 

" The American flag should be in every Sunday- 
school in the United States, and wave over every 
schoolhouse." 

The Kingdom, a Congregational weekly, pub- 
lished in Minneapolis, accepted the suggestion, 




&£%„ , 



UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES. 105 



and in its issue for May 1 1 added the following 
comment : — 

" In these days, when new emphasis is being 
placed upon the duties of citizenship, it is well 
that the religious instruction of the young should 
have incorporated with it teaching along these 
lines. There is no more suggestive symbol than 
the flag of our country/' 

Robert Ross will not lack for local memorials, 
and there is no disposition anywhere to force his 
name upon the country. But his death and its 
significance were commented upon by the press 
in all sections of the land. The local papers re- 
published extracts daily for weeks in succession, 
taken from the dailies and weeklies, the secular 
and religious press. Therefore national attention 
was arrested. What national memorial of the 
martyr could there be more fitting than a per- 
ennial education in patriotism under the folds of 
the flag of our Union and the inspirations of 
Ross's noble life and heroic death ? The flag is 
becoming more and more familiar in the public 
schools. Why not in the Sabbath-schools ? If 
an ideal inspiration and origin were to be sought 
for to initiate a movement for the universal use in 



106 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

Sabbath-school rooms and services of the flag of 
the United States, could a better one be conceived 
or found than such a death of such a youth ? 

It is not proposed that there be the simultane- 
ous observance of a given day in this connection. 
The movement simply proposes a method which 
will give rise to multiplied occasions for awak- 
ening love of country. If adopted, it will be a 
parallel movement with the one which honors the 
flag in the day-school. It will keep our national 
colors "flying" before thousands, even millions, 
of children seven days in the week and three 
hundred and sixty-five days in the year. If 
sentiment is worth anything, the chronic expres- 
sion of it is worth everything. If youth is ideal- 
istic, the idealizing of our country and our flag 
cannot fail to be wholesome and abiding. Local 
patriotism, broadening into a love of home, of 
native or adopted city, of native or adopted state 
and country, is precisely the species of patriotism 
desired. 

How shall the movement be inaugurated ? 
Spontaneously, as it was in Troy, in Westminster 
Presbyterian Church and Sabbath-school. Parents 
can easily stimulate it. Let generous individuals 



UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES. IC>7 

and alert officials foster it. Youth themselves 
can promote it, for a creditable silk flag is not very 
expensive. When the flag is available, hail its 
advent with brief and pointed addresses on such 
themes as patriotism, obedience, fidelity, loyalty, 
courage, and Christian warfare, and with a rich 
programme of patriotic hymns. The story of the 
life and death of Robert Ross on such occasions 
will be worthy of narration and repetition. The 
117th anniversary of the adoption of the Stars 
and Stripes, June 14, 1894, occurred while the 
Court of Oyer and Terminer, Justice Pardon C. 
Williams presiding, was engaged in securing a 
jury for the trial of his indicted murderer. The 
day occurs close to June 17, which is a legal 
holiday in Boston, observed in commemoration 
of the Battle of Bunker Hill. 

The family of George Ross have been grateful 
for the honors paid to their deceased member. 
Their grief has had a modicum of joy that they 
were not called upon to bury more than one of 
their number ; for three of the sons and brothers 
were fired at. William was shot behind the right 
ear, and the ball, taking a downward course, lodged 
in the neck, where it remains. 



I08 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

In consequence of the wound, his hearing on 
that side is somewhat impaired. Adam Ross, 2d, 
narrowly escaped. John was exposed to the in- 
discriminate firing. While confined to his sick- 
room on the day after Robert's funeral, William 
was interviewed by a reporter of TJie Troy Times> 
and informed that a monument to Robert had 
been proposed. His noble reply was, " The only 
monument we desire for our brother is the prom- 
ise of a pure ballot in Troy." The words came 
slowly and earnestly, and were spoken from the 
brave man's heart. 

The sentence is worthy of inscription on the 
monument to be erected. 



FRIENDS AND FOES TO AMERICA. IO9 



CHAPTER VII. 

FRIENDS AND FOES TO AMERICA. 

THE biography of Robert Ross, from begin- 
ning to end, deals with two groups of young 
men. Both groups are typical. Both reveal the 
well-known yet insufficiently emphasized fact, that 
mankind are saved and rescued, or lost and ruined, 
within the first third of the allotted threescore 
years and ten. The records of church member- 
ship and of the State prison are in evidence on 
this point. There are exceptions ; but they are 
not so numerous nor significant as to disprove 
the rule. William Ross is the eldest of the four 
brothers, and he is thirty-seven years of age ; 
John Ross is thirty-three ; Adam Ross, 2d, is 
thirty ; Robert was twenty-five years and six 
months old at the time of his death. 

Bartholomew Shea is twenty-three years of 
age ; John McGough, who is under indictment for 
the shooting of William Ross, is twenty-three ; 
Stanley O'Keefe, one of the principal witnesses 



110 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

for the defence, is twenty-two ; Michael Delaney, 
another witness for the defence, is twenty-five. 

The evidence given in court by their opponents 
themselves disclosed a heritage, a class of lives, 
and an environment directly opposed to the same 
species of facts in the lives of the assailed, 
wounded, and murdered Rosses. If the Rosses 
deserve to be commended, their opponents, of 
necessity, must be condemned, yet not without 
an expression of pity for them, and of hope for 
their social improvement and moral reform, in 
prison or out of it. They are human ; they are 
neighbors in the Biblical and Christian sense ; 
they are to be visited, wherever they are, if they 
receive their dues, by representatives of Christ 
and the church. But their own testimony, pub- 
licly and legally given, has been that they have 
led the lives of idlers and thieves ; that they have 
made the saloon, not the home nor the church, 
the centre of their career; and that they have 
been convicted of crimes. John McGough, while 
giving his testimony, was profane, and was re- 
buked by the examining counsel for the defence. 
He had been in the Reformatory, Elmira, N.Y., 
thirteen months, sentenced for burglary under a 



FRIENDS AND FOES TO AMERICA. Ill 

plea of guilt. Stanley O'Keefe admitted that, 
from October, 1893, until June, 1894, his occupa- 
tion had been roaming around, and his headquar- 
ters had been on the streets ; that from March 6, 
until June 30, 1894, or from the day of the elec- 
tion murder until the day of his testimony in 
court, there had been " about six days " in which 
he had not visited a particular saloon ; and that 
within that period one of his companions had 
worked only twelve or fifteen days. He himself 
had served a sentence for three months in the 
Albany penitentiary. Michael Delaney admitted 
that he was a visitor at a given saloon six days 
out of seven, and that he had lied to the jailer, in 
order to secure an interview with his associate, 
the murderer of Robert Ross. He was character- 
ized by the counsel for the prosecution as "the 
very opposite, in every respect, of the members 
of the Committee for Public Safety." A majority 
of this gang of roughs confessed that they were 
accustomed to carry revolvers, buying or borrow- 
ing, to suit their necessities and convenience. 
Shea's revolver was admitted in evidence, show- 
ing three discharged and three loaded cartridges. 
Shea visited two saloons on election morning be- 



112 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY 



fore the strife occurred at the polls. He acknowl- 
edged that he had lied to the superintendent of 
police, to avoid incriminating himself, and that 
he had assaulted a citizen in a street fight. At- 
torney George Raines, in summing up for the 
prosecution, before the jury, said, — 

"They are persons upon whose honor you 
would not stake five dollars as a loan ; you would 
not accept their word for the price of a ham ; you 
would not leave your pocketbook in a saloon or 
grocery store in the presence o\ any of them and 
go away from it. You would not walk the streets 
of Troy in company with any one of them. You 
would not leave them in your house 'unattended 
with valuables exposed. . . . Not one of this 
gang, either from sentiment or human pity or 
from curiosity, gathered to the side of the dead 
man on the dump across the street." 

Representatives of the "gang" were constantly 
in attendance as spectators in the court-room. 

Their presence was observed by Judge Williams. 
He called up the clerk for issuing subpoenas with- 
out authority, allowing his own friends to get into 
court. The judge censured the coroner for quib- 
bling about identifying property that had passed 
through his hands. He reproved Attorney Hitt, 



FRIENDS AND FOES TO AMERICA. I 1 3 

of the defence, for being too severe with a wit- 
ness, — and all this in one afternoon. 

The photographs of Bartholomew Shea and 
John McGough, in contrast with those of the 
Ross brothers, tell their own story of heredity 
and viciousness ; but we do not care to present 
them. 

The saloon, therefore, on the testimony of such 
witnesses, is their congenial haunt. 

In a sermon delivered by the Rev. S. L. M. 
Haynes of Troy, on the first Sabbath in June, 
1894, in recognition of the semi-centennial of the 
Y. M. C. A., he estimated that there were six 
thousand young men in the city between fifteen 
and thirty years of age. He said, — 

"There are fifty churches in this city ; and if the 
number of young men is the same in the other 
churches as the number who attend this church, 
we will have 1,000 young men in church and 5,000 
not attending church. There are 800 saloons in 
Troy, and about 8,000 men are in these saloons 
every night." 

Edward Murphy, Jr., brewer, makes his living, 
secures his income, in cooperation with saloons, 
aside from other sources of income and more 



114 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

legitimate investments. The sale of the products 
of the brewery is his principal business. He 
and his find common ground in the saloon. The 
saloon becomes a political institution, a political 
retreat, a political centre, a political power for 
base men and bad politics. Nothing good comes 
from it, in the interests of the home or the church. 
But this is not the point now emphasized. Noth- 
ing good issues from it, to promote the welfare of 
the citizen, the voter, the municipality, the State, 
the nation. Immorality and vice dwell in it. 
Crimes against persons and property, against God 
and man and the State, originate in it. It abides 
as headquarters for criminals. Confessed crimi- 
nals certify to the general facts, who are to be be- 
lieved in this line of testimony, when they are 
not to be believed in any other. The whole truth 
was known before they testified. It had been a 
moral certainty. But it was legally proved. No 
attempt was made to prove the connection between 
the chief politician and his tools. But that there 
is a direct connection between the set of politi- 
cians who will buy and force their way into office, 
for the sake of further political advancement and 
a partnership in the (financial) spoils, is not to be 



FRIENDS AND FOES TO AMERICA, 115 

doubted. Editor John A. Sleicher, of the New 
York Mail and Express, is a former Trojan, who 
has had a varied editorial experience in Troy, as 
well as in Albany and New York. While the 
trial of Shea, the man-slayer, was in progress, Mr. 
Sleicher made an address in New York, in which 
he evidently drew upon his knowledge gained 
as an editor in the cities named. He said 
that, — 

" Boss rule means the seizure of municipal con- 
trol by selfish and illiterate men, whose main sup- 
port comes from the saloons, the gamblers and the 
haunts of vice. These latter find a profit in the 
partnership with politics ; and a part of the profit 
is the protection this partnership assures. It 
means the promotion of the ignorant and vicious, 
or of their servile tools, to places of power, to pre- 
side in our courts, to manage our public institu- 
tions, to clean our streets, conduct our schools, 
supervise our charities, and guard our peace. It 
means the sudden accumulation of enormous for- 
tunes by men who look upon official station as a 
personal perquisite and on public office as a private 
snap. 

" Three conditions are needed to secure muni- 
cipal reform : First, honest elections ; secondly, 
a general awakening of civic pride among the 
masses ; and thirdly, united effort on the part of 
all good citizens." 



Il6 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

The situation in Troy may be discerned in the 
light of a contrasting situation. Within a few- 
days after the publication of the article in The 
Golden Rule, on the martyrdom of Robert Ross, 
by his present biographer, a letter was received 
from Grinnell, Iowa, in which the writer of it said 
that political bosses were unknown there, as they 
exist in Chicago, New York, and similar cities. 
Likewise stuffing of the ballot-boxes and repeat- 
ing were unknown. 

" No man here," said the correspondent, " black 
or white, rich or poor, ignorant or otherwise, is 
hindered in the least from going to the polls on 
election day, and quietly casting his ballot for 
whom he pleases, if by the law of the State he is 
entitled to a vote." 

He referred to Grinnell, which is one of the 
oldest towns in Central Iowa, a college town that 
has never known the presence of a saloon, " a 
typical, if indeed not a model, temperance town." 
But he added : — 

" I have never heard of any of these base prac- 
tices before spoken of, in our inland temperance 
State capital, Des Moines, which is only seventy 
miles from here. I have been there, and have 



FRIENDS AND FOES TO AMERICA. WJ 

friends living there also. Des Moines has been a 
prohibition town at least for the last eight years, 
during which time the outrages and frauds and 
crimes have been holding sway in other places on 
election days." 

Iowa is in the main an agricultural State. The 
situation in New York State, in the smaller cities 
and in the rural districts, is a great contrast 
to the condition in New York City, and in the 
cities of mixed nationalities like Brooklyn, Troy, 
and Buffalo. The license system, as related to 
the saloon, prevails in the State. The system is 
low in morals, even when it is high in law. The 
boss is not universal, although the few great 
bosses are all controlling. Nevertheless, it is 
easy to see that Robert Ross in his boyhood, 
in rural and prohibitory Iowa, prohibitory in sen- 
timent before prohibitory in law, had seen a state 
of things which in his young manhood made the 
election conditions in Troy unendurable. He 
must antagonize it in all possible ways, and he 
did. 

It is apparent that the political boss might "go " 
and political corruption remain. Not until the 
saloon is prohibited by law, and the law is en- 



A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



forced, will municipal reform be complete, even if 
much progress is made through " an awakening of 
civic pride," and "united effort on the part of all 
good citizens." The principle of prohibition is to 
be maintained, in the slow process of educating 
and uneducating the people ; for they need not 
only to advance to a discernment and assertion 
of absolute righteousness in a matter of right and 
wrong, but they need to outgrow and abandon 
the policies and the so-called science of alcoholic 
liquors, which have prevailed in this land from its 
origin until now, and in the Old World from time 
immemorial. There is a new science, and a bet- 
ter, because a truer one, which affirms that alcohol 
is a poison, not a food. This is the science now 
written in the text-books of the public schools, 
whether taught by the teacher or not. It has the 
indorsement of public, legal adoption. There is a 
new legal procedure against the liquor traffic, 
"not yet fifty years old," which in State Constitu- 
tions, and in the statutes of States and cities, 
prohibits the wholesale and retail traffic. The 
historic attitude of the world and of this country 
is to be changed and reversed. Biblical prophecy 
predicts that the time will come when nations 



FRIENDS AND FOES TO AMERICA. I 19 



will be born " at once." The signs of those times 
do not appear as yet, the signs of immediate reli- 
gious or moral regeneration. Unless the end 
shall come suddenly, without foreshadowings, 
they are far off, they are not at hand. But evi- 
dence is here presented that a determined few, a 
small minority, a Gideon's band, may accomplish 
much to secure a pure and honest ballot in the 
cast and in the count, or to advance any reform. 
One may chase a thousand, and two put ten thou- 
sand to flight. When the unexpected happens, 
and a modern Cain slays a modern Abel, the 
event is providentially permitted, so as to give an 
emphasis not to be given in any other way to 
the truth that the blood of the martyr is the seed 
of the church. " He, being dead, yet speaketh." 
The name of Robert Ross is the name to conjure 
with in Troy to-day, in opposing the saloons, in 
seeking a better observance of the Sabbath, in 
the instruction of the young in the home and in 
the schools, in issuing warnings against evil, and 
the institutions that generate evil. His monu- 
ment will speak "For God and Our Country" 
through coming generations. The same vicious 
elements that fought and shot him have threat- 



120 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

ened to prevent the erection of the monument, and 
to disfigure or destroy it if erected. But the threats 
are made in a cowardly way, " anonymously," and 
they are not feared nor overestimated. Hence- 
forth, some laws against law-breakers will be en- 
forced in Troy, the processes of law being initiated 
and forwarded by the Committee of One Hundred 
for Public Safety. Counsellor Raines, in his able, 
eloquent, and scholarly address to the jury that 
convicted the murderer, said, — 

" To-morrow will be the anniversary of the sign- 
ing of the Declaration of Independence. And 
you, gentlemen, will be engaged in deciding anew 
the great principles which that day exemplifies ; 
in deciding whether or not republican institutions 
shall stand, and whether government of organized 
society shall continue to exist. The grand right 
of a free people is the ballot. It was in the de- 
fence of that right that the young man who sleeps 
under yonder hillside lost his life ; and it was in 
opposition to this right that the power of organ- 
ized evil strode into the place of the election to 
eradicate whatever of security had been walled 
up about the ballot, by the use of deadly weapons, 
to accomplish a result not in accordance with the 
majority in that district. . . . The question to 
be decided at this bar of justice is not a ques- 
tion between the prosecution and defendant ; it is 





Hon. George Raines. 

J 3 7iblished in the Troy Times. Reproduced by permission. 



FRIENDS AND FOES TO AMERICA. 121 



the question between organized society and its 
enemy. . . . You must decide whether or not 
the assizes of the people for a trial by jury shall 
be interrupted and dismissed by the crack of a 
revolver. ... The American people are to-day 
centering their attention upon the ballot — its 
defence and protection. ... If assassination is 
to take its place in the politics of the American 
people, and an American jury is to palliate such 
an offence, a long stride will be taken in the direc- 
tion of breaking down American institutions 
These Trojans represented the culmination of the 
character, manhood, and patriotism of our Ameri- 
can people. ... As to this matter of repeating, 
I will say it is not a matter of one party or 
another. You know these men are the hired 
thugs of either party, or, I may say, of any party 
who desires to hire them. With them it is a 
matter of total indifference as to who is success- 
ful; they go to the polls for pay, and they are for 
whomsoever they can get to pay. They are a 
menace to good citizenship ; and when the good 
citizen stands in defence of the ballot-box, he 
should be protected. It is a worthy cause to 
engage in. So it was with Robert Ross. He 
simply stood there as one protecting the honesty 
and purity of the ballot, and he fought manfully 
for the cause of right and good citizenship. Had 
he gone away, had he fled, Robert Ross to-day 
would still be walking the earth, a joy and com- 
fort to his family and friends, but to himself 
simply six feet three of undeserved and worthless 



I2 2 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



humanity to his mind and the dignity of his young 
manhood. But he had a high duty which he re- 
garded, and which had to be performed. He 
stood fast at his post. . . . Realize that it was 
at the doorway of the sanctuary of American 
liberty that this man fell; and, as you see him 
fall, realize that it devolves upon you, to protect 
each polling-place in the city of Troy and m the 
State of New York and in the United States from 
a repetition of that offence by which this fellow 
lost his life." 



A. P. A. IN CONTROVERSY AND IN COURT. 1 23 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A. P. A. IN CONTROVERSY AND IN COURT. 

A SECRET society, which was characterized in 
the trial of the murderer of Robert Ross 
as the American Protective Association, the 
American Protestant Association, and the Amer- 
ican Proscriptive Association, figured promi- 
nently in his personal history during January and 
February, 1894, and in the subsequent history of 
his murderer. It has become known to the public 
as the " A. P. A." Neither Robert Ross nor his 
father nor any of his brothers were members of 
it ; yet persistent attempts have been made to 
identify them with it, and for the purpose of fast- 
ening upon them a charge of bigotry and intoler- 
ance. 

January 14, F. Cops, a member of the Esek 
Bussey Steam and Fire Engine Company No. 8, 
published a list of fourteen names of members of 
that company as belonging to the "A. P. A." 
Among them were the names of Adam Ross, 2d, 
and John and Robert Ross. 



124 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

The company held a special meeting February 5, 
and expelled the offending member, after he had 
admitted before the whole company that he had 
published the names out of spite, because he was 
a defeated candidate for office. 

As soon as Robert Ross had been shot, and pub- 
lic indignation asserted itself, the prisoners ar- 
rested and confined for his murder and for shooting 
William, undertook to account for the tragedy by 
attributing it not to political but religious feeling. 
They issued a statement, March 10, which was 
published in one of the local papers March 11, al- 
leging that the thirteenth ward was " a hotbed of 
bigotry and evil ; " and that those in that ward 
wha claimed to be loyal Americans were " not loyal 
Americans, but loyal A. P. A's., in heart, if not in 
organization." Such was their excuse or defence 
for carrying and using firearms, resorting to 
personal violence, murdering and attempting to 
murder. Their pronunciamento scarcely needs 
serious attention ; for even if all that they alleged 
was true, it could not be legitimately offered in 
court or in morals as a defence for depriving 
American citizens and voters of " life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness." When the trial came, 



A. P. A. IN CONTROVERSY AND IN COURT. 



125 



their counsel used all the resources of law to pre- 
vent confessed members of the "A. P. A." from 
being on the jury, on the ground of alleged preju- 
dice against a " Roman Catholic " who was to be 
tried for his life. No member of the jury was a 
member of the "A. P. A." The last man ac- 
cepted, Matthew Book, a farmer, was an avowed 
Catholic ; and he voted to convict, because the 
jury was unanimous as required by law, and the 
verdict was speedily reached after submission. 
The counsel for the defence, in his address to the 
jury, shifted the case from the religious to the 
political extreme, affirming that "it was conceived 
in politics, nurtured in politics, and politics had 
entered into it at every step." 

"Did you not form any opinion as to whether 
any repeating was being perpetrated in the thir- 
teenth ward ? " was a question asked of a juror by 
the counsel for the prosecution. 

" I thought there was some political squabbling 
going on." 

"Do you call shooting with pistols political 
squabbling?" inquired the attorney, with thunder 
in his voice ; and then, as the juror hesitated, con- 
tinued, "Do you call killing men political squab- 
bling ? Is that fair game in Troy ? " 



j 2 6 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



unex 



The witness was decidedly discomfited at this 
..expected question, and tried to recede from the 
answer he had given. He finally said that he con- 
sidered it murder. 

Undoubtedly the issues were political, in the 
best sense of the word. The people were strug- 
gling for securing and maintaining their rights, 
and "demanding a fair legal vote and an honest 
count Party and partisanship had been sacrificed 
for the sake of obtaining a pure and uncorrupted 
ballot All the Rosses were Republicans, but they 
were all working for the election of a Democratic 
mayor ; they were Scotch, yet were working for 
the election of an Irish Roman Catholic mayor. 
Such was their species of bigotry, or of race pre- 
judice ! The issue hinged on the election of a 
mayor. Both nominees were Democrats and 
Catholics. Republicans made no nomination. 
" Durino- the process of selecting the jury, some 
legal decisions were re-affirmed relating to all 
secret societies; and some dialogues occurred 
between jurymen and counsel, of great interest 
alike to those who are and those who are not 

i t «•>,<, <<A P A" The Court ex- 

members of the A. t. .fo- 
cused those who refused to say whether they 



A. P. A. IN CONTROVERSY AND IN COURT. 127 



did or did not belong to the organization in 
question, whether designated in full or by initial 
letters; not because they were disqualified by 
actual membership in it, but for reasons of ex- 
pediency. 

"This is an anti-Catholic organization, is it 
not ? " asked the counsel for the defence. 

The witness. — " Somewhat." 

" Do you take an oath or oaths ? " 

The witness. — " Yes, sir." 

" Do you take those on the Bible, a crucifix, or 
with uplifted hand ? " 

The witness. — " I won't answer that question. 
This is a secret order." 

The defence wished to show that these oaths 
were taken with great solemnity on the crucifix. 

The court said: "I should be very reluctant 
to force a man to reveal anything of this kind. 
I assume you don't want the juror, and I think he 
had better not sit." 

The counsel for the defence then asked the 
juror if he had taken certain oaths, reading the 
form of such oaths from a newspaper. The wit- 
ness declined to answer, and was not compelled to. 
He was challenged, and was excused by the court. 



128 



A MARTYR OF TO-PAY 



Another juror refused to give the name of the 
order to which he belonged, presumptively the 

•• A. P. A." 

••What reason can you give, juror, why you 
should not state the name of the order?" asked 

the Court. 

" I am obligated not to tell." 

-I understood you to say." said the counsel for 
the prosecution, "that you did not object to stat- 
ing the principles of the order. Now, will you 
tell me what those principles are ? " 

■< There are two principles. One is to support 
the national government, and the other is to cast a 
vote but once, and to have that vote counted as 

cast." 

The Court. — « Those principles are very 

proper. There is certainly nothing to object to 

in either." 
' The juror said that there were no other princi- 
ples generally sustained by the organization The 
two he had mentioned were the vital principles on 
which the order was founded. 

Th e following dialogue occurred between a 
juror and the counsel for the defence, — 

•• Did you take an oath to oppose all Catholics? 



A. P. A. IN CONTROVERSY AXD IN COURT. 1 29 

"I did not." 

" Did you take an oath not to employ Catholics 
when you could secure Protestants ? " 

"I did not." 

" You took no such oath ? " 

"There are two kinds of Catholics, — Holy 
Catholics and Roman Catholics." 

" And you are opposed to the Roman ? " 

" Well, I must say I am." 

" Have you taken an oath to oppose them ? " 

" I don't remember." 

" What was in the oath you took ? " 

" I decline to answer the question." 

The attempt to classify Robert Ross as a bigot 
was a failure. He was a Protestant and a Presby- 
terian, and therefore not a Roman Catholic. He 
believed in an absolute separation of church and 
state, in a free church, a free press, free schools. 
He did not favor the appropriation of public funds 
for sectariai institutions ; nor would he counte- 
nance a division of the school funds between Prot- 
estants and Romanists. These are American 
principles. Inasmuch as he and the remainder of 
the male members of the family were not con- 
nected with the secret society in question, neither 



j 3 o A MARTYR OF TO-DAY 



he nor they ean be justly accused of any dements 
attributed to it. The society is not a part of his 
personal or family history, except as abortive 
attempts were made to make it appear so. It 
exists in Troy, and has members in the thirteenth 
ward. A sufficient proportion of jurymen ac- 
knowledged membership in it to create the im- 
pression that it is numerically strong in that city 
and in Rensselaer County. 



Y. P. S. C. E. VERSUS MUNICIPAL MISRULE. 131 



CHAPTER IX. 

v. p. s. c. e. versus municipal misrule. 

'""THE Twelfth International Convention of the 
1 Young People's Society of Christian En- 
deavor was held in Montreal, July, 1893. It 
represented 26,284 societies and 1,577,040 mem- 
bers distributed over the globe. Rev. F. E 
Clark, D.D., the founder of the original society! 
and the President of the United Society, pre- 
sided over the Convention, and delivered his 
annual address. He advocated not political par- 
tisanship, but a larger and more intelligent spirit 
of patriotism and good citizenship. The Mon- 
treal Convention was attended by about seven- 
teen thousand delegates; and President Clark's 
message to them was : — 

" G ° t0 the Primaries of your party, and take 
your Christian Endeavor pledge with you Go to 
the caucus ; get into the legislature ; stand for 
Congress or for Parliament ; but, when you get 
there for God and the church and your country 
do what He would like to have you do " 



1 32 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



At the time that this address was delivered 
Robert Ross was not a member of an Endeavor 
Society. None existed in the church to which 
he belonged. But he was a member of all the 
leading spiritual organizations of young people 
that did exist in the church and in the city. 
Those organizations maintained and executed, 
separately, one or more of the principles of the 
Christian Endeavor Society. The Young Peo- 
ple's Unions and the Y. M. C. A. and the 
Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip stood for 
denominational loyalty, inter-denom.national fel- 
lowship, and systematic committee work The 
A and P Brotherhood stood for definite, pledged 
service In spirit, therefore, Robert was an En- 
deavorer before a society was formed in Oakwood 
Presbyterian Church. 

He did not need such advice as President Clark 
gave. He was accustomed to go to the caucus, 
the primary meeting. He did not seek office 
The advice of President Clark was not intended 
to provoke offensive office-seeking. But he did 
seek, at all hazards, even at the 'risk and sacrifice 
of his life, a pure ballot. He was a self-sacnfic.ng 
patriot He was in Scranton, Penn., during the 



Y. P. S. C. E. VEXSUS MUNICIPAL MISRULE. 



'33 



week previous to the election in Troy, but he 
came home expressly to vote and to protect the 
polls from repeaters. His creed, the creed of all 
good citizens, was well expressed in the notice 
that was posted, March 9, on the doors of William 
H. Frear's Bazaar : — 

"Every man should have the right to vote 
peaceably once, and have it counted fairly !and 
honestly The bazaar will be closed from two to 
PW ;M ' t0 - da y m honor of the memory of Robert 

If he had not suffered martyrdom, the Society 
of Christian Endeavor of the Oakwood Church 
at the close of the year would have had some- 
thing definite to report at its own meeting, and 
to the Thirteenth Annual Convention of World- 
wide Christian Endeavor, Cleveland, 0., July 11- 
15- After his death one of his associates in the 
Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip said, "He was 
worth any six of us, and he was worth any six of 
us at the polls." 

As has already been noted, an Endeavor Society 
was organized in Oakwood Church, exactly mid- 
way between the International Montreal Conven- 
tion and the local March election where Ross's 



I 34 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



life ended. These facts explain why a mass- 
meeting of the Young People's Societies of Chris- 
tian Endeavor, of Troy and vicinity, was held 
Sunday, March 1 8, in the same Presbyterian and 
Baptist churches that had held the citizens' meet- 
ings on Thursday evening, March 8, and the 
mourners at the funeral, March 9. Four great 
audiences assembled within that one month to 
honor the memory and perpetuate the influence 
of Robert Ross. They had distinguishing and 
unique characteristics. The audience of Thurs- 
day evening was an audience of men ; the audi- 
ence of Friday was an audience of kindred, 
friends, societies, and city officials ; the audience 
of Sunday, March 18, was an audience of young 
people, that met at their respective churches and 
proceeded to the union meeting in a body ; the 
audience in Music Hall, Monday afternoon, March 
26, when the Memorial Association was formed, 
was an audience of ladies. 

The Endeavor mass-meeting was opened with 
a song service led by Joseph Knight, after which 
Harvey S. McLeod, who presided, welcomed the 
societies in behalf of the Young People's Chris- 
tian Union of the Second Presbyterian Church, 
in whose edifice they were assembled. 



V. P. S. C. E. VERSUS MUNICIPAL MISRULE. 135 



The principal address of the occasion was de- 
livered by the Rev. Herbert C. Hinds, pastor of 
Adam Ross, 2d, and John C. Ross, two of the 
four brothers who defended the rights of Ameri- 
can citizens so bravely. The wonder is that they 
escaped wounds and death when the fifteen or 
twenty shots were fired promiscuously in the 
encounter that occurred. Their membership is 
in the Ninth Presbyterian Church; and they 
had long been accustomed to good preaching of 
patriotism and Christian citizenship from the 
Rev. N. B. Remick, D.D., who was pastor of that 
church from 1869 to 1891, a period of twenty-two 
years, that covered and paralleled nearly the whole 
life of Robert Ross. 

Pastor Hinds asked and answered the ques- 
tion : — 

"What can the Young People's Societies do for 
municipal reform ? " 
He said in part : 

"I would rather stand before you on this plat- 
form, on this occasion, than before any number 
of crowned heads of Europe on a state occasion. 
... To be content simply to denounce a wrong 
and to stop there will be of little practical service. 



136 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

We must prosecute the cases against criminals 
in high and low places to the bitter end, and leave 
nothing undone which will bring the guilty before 
the bar of justice and behind the bars of the 
prison. . . . When I see the church smiling 
complacently and comparatively inactive in the 
presence of perils compared with which the Goths 
and Vandals who threatened ancient Rome are 
not to be mentioned ; when I know that Christian 
pastors beseech in vain for their prosperous mem- 
bers to do anything adequate for the purging of 
our municipal affairs ; when I see men whose for- 
tunes are measured by the miles, and whose gifts 
for worthy objects are computed in inches ; when 
I see the sink-holes of corruption into which our 
young men and women are dropping by hundreds 
and thousands, and remember that we find it im- 
possible to open an adequate number of reading- 
rooms and coffee-rooms where the temptations 
are the mightiest and deadliest, then I must believe 
that hiring a pew in a church, saying our prayers 
morning and evening, or hearing a sermon on the 
Sabbath, is not the whole duty of a good citizen 
and a Christian man, whether young or old. 

" It has often been said that the Sunday-school 
movement is the most important organization in 
Christian history ; but after a careful reflection I 
regard the rise, the marvellous growth, of the 
Young People's Christian Unions, the Young Peo- 
ple's Baptist Unions, the Epworth Leagues, and 
the Christian Endeavor Societies, as the most 
important events in the annals of the church. 



Y. P. S. C. E. VERSUS MUNICIPAL MISRULE. I 37 

Young friends, you represent organizations which 
can completely overthrow vice and crime within 
the boundaries of this Empire State, and drive the 
arch-conspirators into retirement and disgrace. 
. . . Teach young children to hate the saloons. 
We must not allow any shadow to obscure the 
resplendent scene of freedom on God's holy day. 
We will not permit in these days of triumph any 
influence to desecrate the Christian Sabbath. 
Worse than our great liquor traffic, worse than 
our political corruption, worse than the menace 
of our criminal population, is the lethargy of the 
best classes of our people, of the American born 
and bred citizens of our land. The soldiers of 
the Grand Army of the Republic, more than a 
quarter of a century ago, shouldered muskets and 
drew swords in behalf of our country. And now 
Post Griswold, G. A. R., re-enlists as a regiment 
in the grand army of righteousness. . . . And as 
long as the Hudson shall flow or the Atlantic roll, 
so long as the violet shall speak of modesty, or 
the rose tell of love, so long as there shall be the 
appreciation of the manly, the lovely and divine 
in human action, so long will the influence of our 
hero's life be felt on the heart for the purity of 
the ballot." 

While efforts were making to secure a jury for 
the trial of Shea, curiously enough the name of 
Lawrence Sheary, brewer, was called, just as 
Doring's band came marching past the Court 



I38 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

House, playing " Onward, Christian Soldiers," 
the favorite rallying and marching hymn of the 
Endeavor Society. The juxtaposition of the 
brewer, the hymn, and the society may serve 
to note that the society is opposed to the brewery. 
However Robert's life is viewed, it seems to 
touch the annals and memorials of patriotism. 
He went to Cleveland, O., immediately after the 
revolver caucus in February. In that city is 
the splendid monument to Garfield, with whom 
as a martyr to bad politics he has been compared. 
Likewise he has been compared with Lovejoy, 
Lincoln, and Ellsworth, of kindred history. The 
business letters that he wrote from Cleveland, 
February 9 and 10, contained allusions to the 
then recent revolver caucus. A disturbance occa- 
sioned by a drunken "drummer" reminded him 
of it. In referring to a motor that he had put 
in the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, he 
wrote : " She went off at ' the drop of the hat.' " 
He had acquired the expression from some Ro- 
man Catholic priest. It means " instantly " or 
" quickly." It refers to the signal used between 
the parties in a contest. When the hat drops the 
struggle begins at once. 



Y. P. S. C. E. VERSUS MUNICIPAL MISRULE. 1 39 

How little he realized then that his native city 
during: the next month would be kindled into 
admiration and mourning for him, and into fury 
against his murderer and the impelling forces in- 
ducing it ; and that within less than six months 
the city where he then was would be honoring 
his memory, sounding his praises, and planning to 
perpetuate his influence through the representa- 
tives of more than two million Endeavorers in all 
lands on the globe. 

President Clark, unable to attend the Cleveland 
Endeavor Convention, sent to it and to the writer 
a message in recognition of Robert as the first 
martyr of the Endeavor Society. Secretary Baer, 
in his annual report, expressed the history and 
the prospect as follows : — 

"Our good-citizenship campaign has cultivated 
a greater and more intelligent spirit of patriotism 
and Christian citizenship everywhere, and has 
been fearlessly waged, even to the sacrifice of the 
life of one of our own comrades. But Bat Shea's 
victim, Robert Ross of Troy, cruelly murdered at 
the voting-booth, doing his duty, still lives ; and we 
press on over his body to catch his spirit, deter- 
mined in the right to put to flight Bat Sheas 
everywhere, whether it be in Troy, Boston, Chi- 



140 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

cago, New York, or in the remotest hamlet over 
which the Stars and Stripes or the Union Jack 
swing their peaceful folds. God save America ! 
God save England ! God save the world ! " 

At the session on Friday morning, July 13, an 
Open Parliament was held for answers to the 
question, "What has your Society done to pro- 
mote good citizenship?" It was conducted by 
Edwin D. Wheelock of Chicago, 111. There was 
also a presentation to societies of diplomas 
awarded by the United Society for best work 
reported in promoting good citizenship. 

The Golden Rule, in reporting the proceedings 
of this session, said: — 

"In snappy sentences the year's glorious work 
is shouted out, — saloons put down, Sunday laws 
enforced, gambling suppressed, the poor aided, 
good-citizenship rallies, pledges of better citizen- 
ship, unions organized, elections carried, anti- 
tobacco laws passed, and, alas! one Christian 
Endeavor martyr to the cause of good-citizenship, 
Robert Ross of Troy, N.Y., shot at the polls." 

The Rev. W. R. Taylor, D.D., of Rochester, 
N.Y., in presenting the diplomas, referred in fit- 
ting terms to the reasons why one was awarded to 



V. P. S. C. E. VERSUS MUNICIPAL MISRULE. 141 

the society in Oakwood Avenue Church in Troy. 
The President of that society, F. Bunce, and 
Leroy Collins, President of the Local Union, were 
requested to rise and receive the Chautauqua 
salute. The great tent, seating ten thousand peo- 
ple, rang with applause. The Rev. Graham Taylor, 
D.D., of Chicago, proposed that Robert Ross Good 
Citizenship Committees should be organized. 

The Rev. Rufus W. Miller of Hummelstown, 
Penn., the founder of the Andrew and Philip 
Brotherhood, attended the Endeavor Convention, 
and at a fraternal meeting in the Y. M. C. A. build- 
ing referred to Robert in suitable terms. Three 
organizations were represented, directly or indi- 
rectly, in the service, and Robert was a member 
of all of them, — the Endeavor Society, the 
Brotherhood, and the Y. M. C. A. 

Christian citizenship was one of several lead- 
ing themes of the Cleveland Convention. The 
Rev. Smith Baker, D.D., of East Boston, Mass., 
in one of the addresses said : " Any intimida- 
tion at the polls is a crime against democracy." 
If this be true, what shall be said of foul, brutal 
murder, and attempts at murder, at the polls ? 
Dr. Baker enumerated five conditions of Chris- 



142 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

tian citizenship, all of which prevailed in the 
life of Robert Ross, — "Intelligence, impartial- 
ity, righteousness, independence, and conscien- 
tiousness." 

The Rev. H. B. Grose of Chicago, in a similar 
vein, said : — 

" Election bribery and ballot-box stuffing must 
stop in order that free government may go on." 

Frank Leslie s Weekly, which discussed repeat- 
edly the murder of Robert Ross, in its issue for 
July 26 published an editorial on " Religion and 
Good Citizenship," in the conclusion of which, 
after detailing the facts in an Endeavor crusade 
against the saloon in a city suburban to New 
York, said: "This is citizenship at its best, and 
the organization which nourishes such a spirit, 
incarnating itself in positive acts in political as 
well as moral relations, must rank as a foremost 
force in our modern life." 



OFFICIALS AS SPOILSMEN. 1 43 



CHAPTER X. 

OFFICIALS AS SPOILSMEN AND FREEBOOTERS. 

THE evidence is cumulative that the one-man 
power in Troy has been injurious and perva- 
sive. It has debased many, if not all, depart- 
ments of the city government. It has been 
exerted for a decade and a half. 

This volume is patriotic as distinct from par- 
tisan. Robert Ross was more patriotic than 
partisan. 

" The Right shall live, while Faction dies! 
All traitors draw a fleeting breath; 
But patriots drink from God's own eyes 
Truth's light that conquers Death! " 

The bench is supposed to be non-partisan. 
Judge Lewis E. Griffith, a resident of Troy, 
and Judge of the County Court and Court of 
Sessions, was formerly District Attorney. Politi- 
cally he has been an ally of Senator Murphy. 
In charging the grand jury, May 12, 1894, he 
said : — 



144 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

" You will be called upon to inquire of crimes 
committed in this county which have done more 
harm and positive injury to the city of Troy and 
its interests than if scourged with pestilence or 
afflicted with famine — crimes which strike a death- 
blow to the vital principles of free government ; 
which set at naught the will of a sovereign people, 
and allow the damnable, wicked, lawless actions of 
a mob to voice the sentiments of an outraged 
public. . . . 

" Both of the great political parties are charge- 
able with a dereliction of duty in failing to prose- 
cute offenders against election laws." 

Judge Griffith gave a list of particulars in proof 
of his statement, and added : — 

" Upon examining the records of the United 
States District Court, I find that not five per cent 
of the persons arraigned by the commissioners 
for offences against the election laws have been 
indicted and tried. . . . 

" There has been a disregard of duty by grand 
jurors and public officers in dealing with this 
species of crime. There has been no sincere 
effort made by either of the great political parties 
to suppress it, or punish offenders. There seems 
to have been a tacit understanding between both 
parties that offenders against the ballot would 
not be considered criminal ; yet occasionally some 
offender would be indicted in the federal courts, 
where a fine of a few dollars would be imposed, 



OFFICIALS AS SPOILSMEN. 1 45 

upon a plea of guilty, while others would pass 
through the ordeal of waiting about the court- 
room for a jury to pronounce them guiltless." 

This is the language of confession and accusa- 
tion. It is non-partisan to the extent that it 
excuses neither of the two leading parties, and 
accuses both. It is not our purpose to arbitrate 
and decide which of the two parties is the more 
guilty in violating election laws and in failing to 
prosecute offenders. The city officials for years 
have been chiefly, if not exclusively, Democrats. 
The county officials have been Democrats and 
Republicans. The charge, as quoted, is a part of 
the history, and, as such, it is reproduced. 

Officials are accustomed to use more than a 
reasonable discretion what laws they will enforce. 
They are legally liable for the violation of some 
laws that are explicit, mandatory, and prohibitory. 
District Attorney Kelly is to be tried in October 
for alleged inefficiency, before a commission ap- 
pointed by Governor Flower. 

While the trial of " Bat " Shea was in progress, 
Judge Williams said : — 

" When I came here, I found that of all the 
court officers appointed by the sheriff, not one 



I46 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

was a constable as provided by the statute. ... I 
find it has been the custom to appoint any one, 
whether he be a constable or not. It is about 
time that the sheriff understood the statute. . . . 
I have been warned from a variety of sources that 
trustworthy court officers are difficult to obtain in 
this county." 

The bearing of these facts on the trial of Shea 
was that his conviction for a capital offence by a 
jury in charge of unqualified and disqualified court 
officers would have been valueless in law. 

During the trial, some prisoners escaped from 
the Troy jail, a not infrequent occurrence. Shea 
was conveyed to Clinton Prison, Dannemora, Fri- 
day, July 13. The chances of his escape from 
prison were thereby reduced. 

During the first week in July, a committee of 
the State Senate instituted an investigation into 
the police department of Troy. The Committee 
of One Hundred for Public Safety had employed 
a detective of the New York Society for the Pre- 
vention of Crime, of which the Rev. Charles H. 
Parkhurst, D.D., is the famous and efficient presi' 
dent. The testimony showed not merely mutual 
confidence and co-operation between the New 
York society and the Troy committee, but proof 




''' 



OFFICIALS AS SPOILSMEN. HJ 



of kindred crimes by the New York and Troy 
police. Reliable testimony and sufficient evidence 
were furnished to demonstrate that the police are 
accustomed to coerce disorderly houses as to 
their purchases of furniture, liquors, and cigars ■ 
to furn.sh such houses protection for a financial 
consideration amounting to a regular tax and 
license ; to borrow money from the keepers with 
no expectation of or demand for repayment ; to 
use these houses as refuges when intoxicated ; to 
retain the money of persons arrested or held as 
witnesses ; and to exact subscriptions for gifts 

The clerk of the board of excise testified as 
tollows : — 

"The money collected [from disorderly houses! 
was pa,d over to the charity board. I made su ch 
collections because it was a custom established 
by my predecessors. Molloy, Magill, and O'Neil 
were the commissioners. [The Commissioner 
Molloy referred to ,s the present Mayor of Trov 
a cousin of Senator Murphy.] They did not 
direct me to make such collections ; but Wy knew 
that I did so, as the entries were made in the 
books. In these cases no licenses were issued, as 
the law would not allow the issuing of licenses to 
disreputab e houses. The board regarded these 
houses as disreputable houses. A previous board 



14$ A MARTYR OF TO-DAY 



of some years back had refused to grant licenses 
to such houses. 

"These collecti ns were paid to the chamber- 
lain for the support of the poo-. As Long as they 
s ling liquor." said the witness. " they ought 
: as much as some poor widow down 

town." 

••Don't you know." asked Attorney Frank S. 
Black, " that they had no right to sell liquor ? " 

'• I don't suppose that they had any right to 
sell," replied the witness. 

•• Do you know of any law that allows you to 
receive money from those people ? " asked Mr. 
Black. 

•• I do not." replied the witness. " I knew in 
receiving money that they intended to sell liquor." 

" You knew that you were receiving this money 
in violation of law. aid you not ? " asked Mr. 
Black. 

"No, I did not," replied the witness. 

"What else was this money you received except 
hush money ' 

'• I don't kn s u'd call it hush money." 

" Do you know of : er purpose for which 

the monev was received except to violate the 
law 

"No, sir." 

One of the witnesses before the investigating 
committee was John Ross, who, by request of a 
representative of Senator Murphy, called at his 



OFFICIALS AS SPOILSMEX. 1 49 

brewery, March 5, the day preceding the death 
of Robert. William Ross accompanied John, and 
during the trial of McGough testified to the facts 
of the interview as follows : — 

"At the brewery we met Senator Murphy and 
Police Commissioner Molloy, who was a candidate 
for mayor. . . . John told how he had been as- 
saulted at the caucus, and showed where he had 
been struck in the face with a revolver, and told 
Murphy how Shea, Cleary, Owen Judge, and other 
Democrats of the thirteenth ward, had broken up 
our caucus. We asked Murphy and Molloy to 
send us policemen on election day, who would not 
assist repeaters to vote. . . . We also told Murphy 
how a policeman had thrown our brother Robert 
out of the polling-place in the third district of the 
thirteenth ward at the fall election. . . . Murphy 
said, 'There will not be a repeater in the city to- 
morrow;' and we thought that he and Molloy could 
give us the protection we wanted." 

Senator Murphy, it will be seen, tacitly assumed 
that he could control the presence or absence of 
repeaters. If he had used his restraining power, 
and kept his word, the fatality of election day 
would not have occurred, and William Ross, his 
caller of March 5, would not have suffered deaf- 
ness for life from a pistol shot and a bullet wound 



150 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

in the neck. The very things occurred against 
which John and William Ross tried to guard, 
because they had occurred before; viz., repeaters 
were present, armed with firearms, and policemen 
who knew and aided them. Senator Murphy is a 
monarch without legal standing or accountability 
as a political manager. 

In opening for the defence, in the trial of 
McGough, Attorney Norton located a part of the 
responsibility for the situation when he addressed 
the jury as follows : — 

"I have heard of repeating in this city ever 
since I was a boy. For more than fifteen years 
the most flagrant outrages on the rights of 
citizens on election day have been permitted to 
go unpunished. At every election these offences 
against the sacredness of the ballot-box have been 
countenanced. Repeaters have operated, and 
ballot-boxes have been stuffed. We know, the 
prosecution knows, and you can guess, where 
the blame lies ; and if the prosecution does not 
desire to place the blame where it belongs, and to 
place the responsibility for all these outrages, I 
shall assert, gentlemen, that it is not honest to 
try to place it all upon poor McGough and poor 
Shea. Crime upon crime against a fair ballot has 
been perpetrated in this city for years ; but I 
never heard of an effort to put an end to these 



OFFICIALS AS SPOILSMEN. 151 

crimes until the blood of brave Robert Ross 
aroused the authorities to the necessity of making 
some sort of a front. They are not honest, I tell 
you, in this prosecution, nor in the effort to prose- 
cute Shea. ... It is the prosecuting officers of 
this city and county who should bear this fearful 
responsibility, and not Shea, not McGough. I 
protest against this effort to make them the sole 
responsible parties. If they were engaged in 
repeating, it was not as principals, but as tools of 
others high and prominent in position." 

We have said that the evidence is cumulative, 
as bearing upon the evil doings of "the powers 
that be," and of the supreme power behind all the 
thrones in the government of Troy that asserts 
itself in the county also, and in the State and in 
the nation. The testimony before the Senate 
Committee and in the trial of McGough, relating 
to the police, was confirmatory of that given at 
the trial of Shea; for during the trial an inspector 
of elections, James H. Crutchley, gave a graphic 
account of the manner in which a crowd of fifteen 
or twenty repeaters, inclusive of Shea and Mc- 
Gough, crowded into the door of the polling-place, 
ignoring the regular line of voters, and voted,- 
swearing in their votes because challenged. They 



152 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

held in sight the slips given them, containing the 

gistered names on which they were to vote, 
withdrew for fifteen or twenty minutes, 
then came back and voted a second time, giving 
different names. Again they crowded in ahead 
of the regular line. Police officer Patrick Cahill 
had charge of the regular line of voters. Cahill 
pushed the regular line back, so as to let the 
crowd of unregistered strangers in to get their 
ballots. The officer told the regular voters, said 
the witness, that he would "break some of their 
heads if they didn't keep still." 

"What position did this man hold — patrol- 
man?" asked Justice Williams. 

''Yes, sir," replied the witness. 

"Is he still on the force?" 

"I believe he is." 

The inquiry of Justice Williams was the inquiry 
of surprise and astonishment. No other interpre- 
tation of it reasonably can be made. 

Jeremiah Clean* took voters from the regular 
line by seizing them by the collar and pulling 
them off the steps leading to the polling-place. 
Shea and his gang voted early and often in differ- 
ent districts for half of election day, and appar- 



tAL AS SPOIL: ML I : : 



jntly would have vote and :::;-:. ;. sc tilled 

out the ;. 

collision of fore es \ resulted in murder, and 
narrowly escaped resulting id a plurality :: mur- 
iers. Arthur E. Bartlett, a Prohibitionist watcher, 
testified as : — 

" I heard one of the men give my name and 
residence, and I challenged him, but re his 

vote in. I called the attention of the ins 
to the fact that I was t oly person of the : 
living at the number given. I was 
quainted with two of the inspectors. Crutchley 
and Thomas Bohan. When the gang had 
went out to follow the stranger who voted on my 
name. He went direct ss the street to 

McClure's saloon. I continued to watch this 
stranger ten or fifteen minutes. 

This testimony is exactly similar to that of Mr. 
Armstrong which has already been quoted. Mr. 
Bartlett, when the stranger voted on his name, 
called upon an officer to arrest the offender ; but 
the officer refused. 

Likewise, in the trial of McGough for shooting 
William Ross, Ernest V. Perry, an inspector of 
elections on the day of the shooting, testified that 
he had known times in the thirteenth ward when 



154 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

sixty illegal votes had been received by the in- 
spectors. "Why, last fall," said the witness, 
"twenty-five illegal votes were cast in the third 
district alone. Duncan C. Kaye challenged every 
one of them, too, and the inspectors paid no at- 
tention to him, other than to administer what they 
called an oath before receiving the ballots." 

"Did you ever make complaint to the District 
Attorney about this?" asked Mr. Hitt, counsel for 
the defence. 

"Yes, sir." 

"When?" 

"When I was called before the grand jury." 

How much security and safety there will be on 
election days, or by night throughout the year, 
under the so-called protection of the police, we 
leave our readers to infer. 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IMPERATIVE. I 55 



CHAPTER XI. 

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IMPERATIVE. 

IN the July, 1894, number of the Century Maga- 
zine, an unsigned article was published under 
the heading "Topics of the Time," entitled "A 
Martyr of To-day." Robert Ross was the martyr 
meant. The writer, a member of the Century 
staff of editors, left no doubt of the bearing, in 
his judgment, of the two sides of the history of 
this sad case, the bad side and the good. He 
summarized both in the following paragraph : — 

" The death of Ross in the discharge of the 
highest duty of citizenship has revealed to the 
American people an example of civic devotion and 
of self-sacrifice which should inspirit decent citi- 
zens everywhere, while it should startle the indif- 
ferent into a realization of the desperate and 
dangerous character of the new generation of 
political spoilsmen. 

" Robert Ross was in an eminent sense a mar- 
tyr to liberty. No man that fell at Lexington or 
Sumter gave his life to his country with more 
willingness or for a better principle." 



156 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

This paragraph recalls the fact that when 
Robert was leaving home on election morning, 
his mother expressed apprehension of trouble du- 
ring the day ; and he answered that some one 
must take a stand for the rights of the people. 
This sentiment was wrought into floral emblems 
at his funeral. 

Likewise, the editor discerned and appropriately 
characterized the true nature of the two antago- 
nisms in Troy and in many other cities. The col- 
lision is not between the representatives of two or 
more political parties that differ, however radi- 
cally, about the principles and policies of general 
or local self-government. There is a problem in 
such conditions, but not a menace. The very 
genius of our government and institutions pro- 
vides for such honorable and honest contention, 
and confides securely in the outcome. 

But the hostility that is dangerous is that which 
issues from the vicious and the criminal, who not 
only do the illegal, but the controlling thing, and 
determine the result of the election. 

Assistant District Attorney Fagan, in his open- 
ing address to the jury, in the trial of McGough 
for shooting William Ross, said : — 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IMPERATIVE. 1 57 



" Murder involves the taking of human life 
through malice ; but in this case there is some- 
thing dearer than a single life — it is the question 
of American citizenship, a question which comes 
home to us all, Democrats and Republicans, rich 
and poor. The question is whether it is the good 
citizen with the ballot, or the thug with his revol- 
ver, who shall control our nation." 

It was only by one chance in ten thousand that 
McGough was not tried on a charge of murder. 
A slight variation in the course of the bullet and 
it would have penetrated the brain. 

It has been asserted in the progress of this nar- 
rative that the normal and legal results of elec- 
tions have not only been changed, but nullified 
and reversed. The case is " Shea versus Ross," 
"The Criminal versus the Citizen," "Fraud and 
Violence versus Honesty and Self-Defence." If 
it be decided, partly or wholly, in favor of the pis- 
tol politician, then danger has already become 
disaster. The writer in The Century, said : — 

"The danger of the ascendancy of the criminal 
element in politics is a danger to men of all par- 
ties, and there is hardly a city of the United 
States where there is not need of a non-partisan 
body of picked men whose duty it shall be to 
exalt the sanctity of the now degraded suffrage ; 



tS A MARTYR OF TO-DAY 



to agitate for the most perfect election laws, and 
for more severe penalties for their violation ; to 
bring the force of public opinion to bear on the 
selection of registry and election boards ; to scan 
and purify the lists of voters ; to study the rights 
of citizens at elections, and to defend them at the 
polls ; to become familiar with the personnel of 
the districts in which they are to serve as watch- 
ers, and to exert the whole power of the law on 
election day to insure the free casting and faithful 
counting of the vote. An appropriate name for 
such a body would be * The Robert Ross Asso- 
ciation.' . . . 

"The imprisonment of twenty-nine offenders 
against the election law in New York City was 
accomplished by exactly the sort of work which 
might be undertaken by these associations. Bear- 
ing the name of Robert Ross, they would at once 
be a challenge to evil-doers, and a solemn procla- 
mation of the serious nature of their mission." 

Civil service reform is too large a question to 
be discussed in the brief limits of this chapter or 
biography. But the bearings of it in this case 
may be shown after the Century writer has been 
allowed to express himself as to the necessity for 
it: — 

''The Spoils System is a deadlv upas-tree 
which the nation has long been nourishing; its 
leaves are dropping upon us as never before ; here 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IMPERATIVE. 1 59 



and there we have broken a twig or lopped off a 
branch; but the time has come to root it im 
entirely. To do this in nation, state, city, and 
village, is a purpose to which every good citizen 
should devote himself. The death of Robert 
Ross will not have been in vain if it shall lead 
his countrymen to ponder the fundamental prin- 
ciple for which he died." F 

Evidently there are, to say the least, two 
departments of city government which have 
figured in the preceding narrative that ought to 
be divorced absolutely from politics, — the school 
and the police departments. It is revolting that 
a school-teacher or the friend of a school-teacher 
should need to consult or depend upon a profes- 
sional politician for his or her position ; and in 
Troy that the teacher should suffer the humilia- 
tion of consultation with and dependence upon a 
brewer boss. He or she thereby becomes the 
subject, not of Republican and Democratic govern- 
ment, not of an aristocracy, as government by the 
best or the few, but of a monarchy, the govern- 
ment of one, and the one, we repeat and empha- 
size, a generator of saloons! 

It is even more revolting that the policeman 
should owe his office to personal and offensive, if 



160 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

not corrupt, politics and politicians ; that he should 
be the appointee and tool of one or a few rather 
than the impartial, incorruptible representative 
and defender of all; that he should account for 
himself to the politician, not to the public. The 
policeman who does not protect the polls and 
good citizens ; who does not terrorize, and, when 
the conditions require, arrest the political assassin 
and repeater, is himself a criminal, and one of the 
worst conceivable. He is comparable only to the 
father who dishonors and slays his daughter; he 
ranks with the anarchist who would destroy 
society, and perpetuate disorder, brutality, and 
civil war; with the marauder and brigand who 
makes a child his victim. He should be rail- 
roaded out of office and power into prison. 

The police of Troy were efficient and shrewd 
enough to arrest and imprison an innocent man 
for the murder of Robert Ross, John H. Boland, 
and to keep him in jail until the coroner's inquest 
was completed. 

When he was released, a group of fifty promi- 
nent citizens escorted him from the jail to his 
home, displaying profusely the Stars and Stripes. 

Rev. E. B. Olmstead, of Delevan, N.Y., has 




Hon. Galen R. Hitt. 

Published in the Troy Times. Reproduced by perviission. 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IMPERATIVE. l6l 



invented an automatic ballot cabinet, the use of 
which has been made optional by the State legis- 
lature for towns and villages. Efforts will be 
put forth to make its use compulsory. It provides 
a private gallery about four feet square, that shuts 
in the voter from observers. As he enters, a 
guard or inspector's clerk furnishes him with a 
ball, which he drops into an orifice of "ballot dis- 
tributers " plainly marked " Democrat," "Repub- 
lican," " Prohibition." If he cannot read, he sees 
party emblems, — an "eagle," a "flag," a "white 
ribbon," a "sheaf of grain," etc., one of which, he 
has been instructed, indicates his party. 

He then pulls a knob, and a ticket or set of 
tickets is automatically thrust out of the machine. 
He passes through an exit door, and deposits 
a straight ticket in the ballot-box, or enters a 
booth to change his ticket. Straight ticket vot- 
ing will be so rapid that very many less voting 
precincts will be needed. More than one thou- 
sand votes may be cast in a day. 

In each of the party ballot distributers there is 
a numbering device, so that every vote is regis- 
tered as a tick i c set of tickets is delivered ; and 
the moment the ioiob is pulled out the unlock- 



1 62 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

ing ball rolls out through the machine to the 
guard. 

The closing of the doors of the respective ticket 
cases in the ballot distributers shuts from view the 
registers ; and on opening these doors at the close 
of the election the result thereof is shown by the 
automatic count. The law provides that in case 
the inspectors find in the ballot-boxes at the close 
of the election more tickets of either party than 
are indicated by the party register, they shall be 
rejected. 

The invention secures secrecy of the ballot, 
registers the straight ticket vote of each party, 
prevents an erroneous canvass of the votes cast, 
and does away with electioneering by ticket ped- 
dling. Each voter can get only one ballot or set 
of ballots. 

On the wall of the private cabinet is a kodac 
or snapshot device which watchers may operate 
so as to make it a " Repeater Catcher." We 
might call it in derision of him a substitute for 
the Trojan policeman; and in praise, a substitute 
for Robert Ross. 



REDEMPTION OF THE CITY. 1 63 



CHAPTER XII. 

REDEMPTION OF THE CITY THE GOAL OF CIVIC 
LIFE. 

THE life of Robert Ross has been considered 
in itself and in its public relations. It is now 
practically concluded. This is not a history of 
Troy, except in part. Otherwise a very different 
story might be told, which has been suggested in- 
cidentally and occasionally. The history covers 
more than a century, and down to the close of 
the Civil War, or 1865-70, it is a history of which 
any city in the land might be proud ; a history of 
enterprise, of industrial energy and success, of an 
educational centre, inclusive of a commercial col- 
lege, an academy, a female seminary, a theological 
seminary, a school for civil engineers, and a popu- 
lar debating society and library. It is a history 
of pioneer work, of public spirit, and private 
beneficence. The change has come, and the 
changed reputation, within a score of years. But 



64 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



the change, great as it is, is not complete. 
Through public appropriations and private gifts, 
since 1880, a monument has been raised (in co- 
operation with the county) to the soldiers and 
sailors of the war of 1861-65 ; a Young Woman's 
Home has been founded; a Railroad Y. M. C. A. 
has been organized ; a Memorial Chapel, with 
incinerating apparatus of the most approved con- 
struction, has been erected in Oakwood Ceme- 
tery ; the centennial of the city (1889) has been 
worthily observed, and a new life given on the 
same site to the Troy Female Seminary, long 
famous under the management of Madame Emma 
Willard. New churches have been organized, 
and many of the older edifices reconstructed 
and refurnished. A new and splendid orphan 
asylum is soon to be entered, a new high school, 
a new public library. It would be a pleasure to 
give details, inclusive of the names of donors, but 
our limits will not permit. The history of Troy 
as a Pergamum, a Sardis, a Laodicea, is confined 
to about two decades, so far as there is justi- 
fication for so considering it ; and its reputation 
as such, in spite of the record made herein, is 
worse than its character. Its politics, elective 



REDEMPTION OF THE CITY. 1 65 

and appointive, affecting all departments of mu- 
nicipal affairs, the enactment and execution of 
municipal law, and the administration of justice 
and local government, have been the prime causes 
of the revolution that has occurred. The condi- 
tions created by indiscriminate, unrestricted im- 
migration, easy naturalization, and the licensed 
saloon have given the professional politician, the 
boss politician, and the briber, silver and goldc?i 
opportunities, of which they have been quick to 
avail themselves. 

Troy is a typical American city, in most re- 
spects, in its history during the last generation. 
It is a crucial city now, and will remain so for a 
long term, in its tested capacity for municipal re- 
forms. It represents alike the cities of the first and 
second rank, — New York, Philadelphia, Boston, 
Chicago, and Brooklyn on the one hand ; and on 
the other, Buffalo, Albany, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, 
and similar cities. In it is every problem that 
faces the American people, calling for the dif- 
fusion of religion, morality, intelligence, education, 
honesty, truthfulness, and kindred virtues ; and 
the abolition of irreligion, immorality, ignorance, 
race prejudice, caste, and sectarianism ; the eradi- 



1 66 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

cation of the criminal by penal and reformatory 
agencies. The problems exist in Troy in a radical, 
aggravated, intrenched form ; but in some form 
and degree they are distributed through all, or 
nearly all, American cities. The largest cities are 
worse than Troy and the cities of the second rank, 
in the extent of their slums and the social degra- 
dation of their tenements and " foreign " quarters. 
The antagonisms between Protestants and Ro- 
man Catholics in Troy, as elsewhere, disclose two 
schools of Protestants and two wings of Catholi- 
cism. There is a self-styled liberal school of 
Protestants that believes it finds its affinity in 
a similar school of Catholics ; and these two 
trust each other, co-operate in emergencies and in 
things common, such as antagonism to the saloon, 
the preservation of a quiet Sabbath, and the en- 
forcement of law. There is a school of Protes- 
tants and a school of Catholics that represent 
the survival and continuance, not the cessation, of 
hereditary historical bias and antagonisms. The 
collision has been transferred from the Old World 
to the New. It is the facts, the history, the con- 
ditions, with which we are dealing, not their 
equities. 



REDEMPTION- OF THE CITY. 1 67 

A distinction is to be made between a problem 
and a peril. A problem may be perpetuated with- 
out becoming a peril. Even a disease of the 
heart may not be organic, but functional. A man, 
William Ross for example, may be wounded, and 
his life tremble in the balance, yet he may survive 
the emergency, and carry the ball, not yielding to 
death, nor to more serious chronic invalidism than 
deafness. Likewise a city, a State, a nation. 
American cities have become deteriorated by 
social ills, demanding acute treatment, drastic 
remedies, civic and moral surgery ; but these 
cities and evils are more problematic than perilous. 
Sober study of the lessons of history, and close 
observation of the recuperative tendencies of 
recent years, and of the ultimate power of choice 
remnants of population, American and adopted, 
are the reasons for our civic creed. Counsellor 
Raines, addressing the jury in the trial of 
McGough, and referring to the election misdeeds 
in Troy, said : — 



" There is a power and a whip in almost every 
city of the country which suppresses these trans- 
actions." 



1 68 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

We would change his statement from the pres- 
ent into the future tense. In the conclusion of 
that trial, when applause was awarded to the 
counsel for the defence by friends of the prisoner, 
Justice Williams suppressed it, and uttered re- 
formatory sentiment when he said : — 

" You may carry on, in the sort of courts you 
have been in the habit of visiting, but you cannot 
do it in this court." 

Likewise Counsellor Raines commended the cit- 
izens who assembled at the polls in the third pre- 
cinct of the thirteenth ward of Troy, March 6, 
and said : — 

" There stood seventy-five as good men as live in 
Rensselaer or any other county." 

The seventy-five in that precinct, and the Com- 
mittee of One Hundred appointed seventy-two 
hours later, were representative, typical. Their 
testimony and their deeds have not only convicted 
Shea, but McGough, who has been sentenced to 
the State prison for nineteen years and six months, 
whose sentence may be reduced by good behavior 
to less than twelve years. They have cornered 



REDEMPTION OF THE CITY. 



Senator Murphy, testifying that he gave a guar- 
anty for the action and absence of repeaters, the 
value of which, in fact, proved to be the equivalent 
of a promise to secure their presence. The re- 
formatory work has begun, but it is by no means 
ended. The initial steps have been taken which 
propose to induce members of churches to take a 
greater interest in Troy's primary meetings and 
elections. The first meeting was held in the same 
Presbyterian edifice as the funeral of Robert Ross. 
Justice Williams, in sentencing McGough, said : — 

" One lesson taught to the public is that what- 
ever has been said or may be said about the city 
of Troy or the county of Rensselaer, honest men 
are yet strong enough to maintain the law. After 
the result of these trials they can say, ' We are 
still strong enough to take care of our own crimi- 
nals.' " 

The churches and minorities in cities should 
abandon their indifference and lethargy, organize 
on a non-partisan basis, devote time, labor, and 
money to purifying, reformatory work ; and by so 
doing they can and will arrest and nullify, if not 
abolish, criminality at the polls and associate evils, 
preliminary and subsequent. Attorney Raines, in 



170 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

Rochester for twenty-five years, has been an at- 
tendant at the opening and closing of the polls. 
Multiply the one man by many and the system 
of terrorizing will be reversed. The good citizen 
will terrorize the bribers and repeaters and ballot- 
box stuffers. 

Rev. Charles Parkhurst, D.D., of New York, 
after his unique and agonizing experience, says : 
" I am absolutely confident in my convictions 
that it is the Church of the living God that has 
got to take up this matter (municipal reform) 
and put it through." 

Because New York is the Empire State, and 
New York City is the Metropolis, not only of the 
State but of the nation, the facts concerning the 
cities of New York State are typical, and the cities 
themselves are crucial for reform or a further 
declension. 

In 1846, forty-eight years ago, the population 
of the State (hundreds omitted) was 2,604,000 ; 
that of New York City was 371,000; while the 
population of all the cities of the State was but 
573,000, or about 22 per cent, a little over one- 
fifth of the entire population of the State. Now 
the population of the State, according to the last 



REDEMPTION OF THE CITY. \*]\ 

State census, is 6,513,000; the population of New- 
York City is 1,801,000; the population of Brook- 
lyn is 995,000; and the population of all of the 
cities of the State is 3,987,000, exceeding by 50 
per cent the entire population of the State forty- 
eight years ago, and constituting 61 per cent of 
the present population of the State. 

The proposed Greater New York will consist of 
the present cities of New York, Brooklyn, Long 
Island City, a considerable portion of Queens and 
Westchester Counties, and all of Richmond County. 
If the present cities of New York and Brooklyn, 
and the adjacent territory proposed, are combined 
in the Greater New York, that city will start with 
a population of 3,000,000 ; and it is within the 
limits of reasonable anticipation and forethought 
that before 191 5 there will be 5,000,000 people 
residing in that great city under a single muni- 
cipal administration. New York will then be 
another London. Outside of and beyond the 
Metropolis are the great cities on the lakes, one, 
according to the last State census, with 278,000, 
and one with 144,000 population ; Albany with a 
population of 97,000; the contiguous city of Troy 
with a population of 64,000 ; Syracuse with about 



172 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

92,000 ; and twenty-eight smaller cities, all with 
the warrantable expectation of continued develop- 
ment and growth. 

New York City has nearly one-third of the pop- 
ulation of the State ; and the Greater New York, 
if formed, will have nearly one-half the population 
of the State. The cities larger than Troy consti- 
tute more than half the population of the State, 
and that preponderance is rapidly increasing. 
One-half the population of the State is south of 
the northerly boundary of Yonkers. That popu- 
lation is rapidly increasing, and will ultimately be 
a part of Greater New York. 

The Committee on Cities of the Constitutional 
Convention of New York, in session during the 
summer of 1894, from whose report some of the 
facts in this chapter are taken, reported that : — 

" Never before in the history of the world have 
such prodigious aggregations of people been gath- 
ered in cities. Practically it is in this country 
alone that the great problems they present are to 
be solved by popular representative government 
under a written constitution. . . . 

" The government of great cities is no longer to 
be secondary to matters of the State or the 
nation." 



REDEMPTION OF THE CITY. 1 73 

The problems of government, municipal, State, 
and national, arise largely from the number and 
quality of saloons ; the presence and massing of 
foreigners who do not speak the English language, 
and who confound freedom and license; the con- 
gestion of population in tenements and slums ; the 
degree of illiteracy, and corruption in politics. 

In the city of New York there was, in 1893, one 
liquor saloon to every 200 persons ; but in the slum 
district, which lies between the business and 
residential sections, there was one saloon to every 
129 persons. The proportion of foreign-born 
persons in the slums of American cities is very 
largely in excess of the proportion of the whole 
population. This excess is in New York 20.35 
per cent. 

In New York, also, the percentage of illiterates 
is 1. 16 for the entire native-born population, and 
14.06 for the foreign-born, the percentage for both 
being 7.69; while for the slum population the per- 
centage of native-born who are illiterates is 7.20, 
and of the foreign-born, 57.69, the percentage for 
both being 46.65. 

Of the whole number of voters in New York 
City, 49.93 per cent are foreign born, while 



174 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

in the slum district 62.44 per cent are foreign 
born. 

Our readers, in view of such awakening, if not 
alarming facts, will do well to re-read " The 
Introduction," by the Rev. Josiah Strong, D.D. 

We have shown what the crimes against the 
ballot in Troy have been, and the evident collusion 
between the criminals and the police. Two crim- 
inals have become convicts. The life of one, if 
sentence is executed, will be taken. The greater 
criminal in spirit received the less punishment, 
because less criminal according to the letter of the 
law. McGough held the brains of the band of re- 
peaters that operated March 6 in the thirteenth 
ward of Troy. Attorney Raines said that 90 per 
cent of the blame belonged in reality to him, and 
10 per cent to Shea. Justice Williams said to 
McGough : — 

" Your own conduct in these trials has not been 
in your favor. You are not a good man ; your 
record is very bad. ... It is no fault of yours 
that William Ross does not lie to-day beside his 
brother Robert in a grave on the hillside." 

The officials accused and censured in court, 
directly and by implication, by the presiding judge 



REDEMPTION OF THE CITY. 1 75 

and by the attorneys, are impeached at the bar of 
public opinion ; and self-respect should lead them 
to demand an investigation or to resign. 

Attorney Raines, in addressing the jury in the 
trial of McGough, said : — 

" A collection of bad officers is an example for 
all times in all communities. The instant your 
officials become prostituted, the gambling houses 
and the houses of ill-fame are incorporated in the 
official system. These evils accumulate, until 
finally you have that multitudinous system of fraud 
that was characterized by the Tweed regime. So 
society, from its lowest strata, gradually sees built 
from the foundation a monster which becomes an 
incubus to society. And the outcome of all this 
is what ? Revolution ! " 

The kindred crimes at Gravesend in November, 
1893, attracted national notice. The facts estab- 
lished in the trial and conviction of the criminals, 
were that Gravesend had a population, according 
to the State census, of 8,418; its legitimate vote 
could not exceed 1,600. The events of that elec- 
tion were that sworn officers opened the ballot- 
boxes and put 2,000 ballots into them. That 
was done behind a cordon of policemen with club 
and pistol, barring every one but the conspirators 



I76 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

from the polls, and in so doing defying and resist- 
ing the officers of the law and the processes and 
mandates of the supreme court. By such proceed- 
ings there was returned and certified a total vote 
of 3,672, in a total population of 8,418. A return 
that 600,000 votes had been cast in New York 
City, or $0,000 votes in Rochester, would be no 
more absurd, and in principle no more dangerous 
to the liberties and civil rights of the people. 

In other cases, at many other polls of election, 
wrongs to the elective franchise similar, though 
less flagrant, have been committed. The Consti- 
tutional Convention Committee on Cities, already 
quoted, expressed the belief that the danger-point 
in our system of government is at the ballot-box, 
and that great frauds, exceeding those of stealth 
and indirection, can never exist without the com- 
plicity of the officers whose duty it is to preserve 
order and make arrests ; and affirmed that any 
failure of the police to protect the citizen in the 
lawful exercise of the elective franchise, whereby 
a correct vote is not secured in a given city, such 
as Troy or Buffalo, affects not only Rochester, 
but every city, every town, and every citizen of 
the State. 



REDEMPTION OF THE CITY. 1 77 

In the last analysis, therefore, the responsibility 
for purity and reform is so divided and distributed 
as to rest upon every citizen, every voter. When 
it rests upon such citizens as Robert Ross, or his 
father and brothers, its obligations are discharged, 
the city and the country are rescued and redeemed. 
They coveted no higher title than that which 
belongs to good American citizens. They have 
been abundantly vindicated in the courts. 

In the feudal period of the Middle Ages, when 
a young man was to be made a knight, the attend- 
ants clothed him in a white tunic, a symbol of 
purity ; in a red robe, the symbol of the blood 
which he was bound to shed in the service of the 
faith; in a toga, — a close black coat, — a symbol 
of the death which awaited him as well as all 
men. They put on his coat of mail, bound on 
his spurs, and girded on his sword. With his 
helmet on his brow, brandishing his lance, he 
went forth to war in the contest of chivalry. 

When Robert Ross went forth to do his sacred 
and solemn duty on March 6, and, as the event 
proved, to sacrifice his life, there was no halo 
around his head, and he was not clothed in symbolic 
robes. But, providentially, he had been ordained 



178 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 

as a knight of the kingdom of God. As ever, he 
was plainly but neatly dressed. He wore a dark 
suit, a light brown overcoat, a Derby hat. The 
hat was found in the gully in front of the polls 
with a bullet-hole in the rim. After death his 
clothes were covered with blood and dirt. There 
was a bullet-hole in the breast of his overcoat and 
coat. A bullet had passed through time-tables 
and memoranda in his pockets, but not through 
his vest. The exhibit of his clothes was made in 
court, and it seemed as if his transfigured spirit 
were present. It is abroad in the church, the 
State, and the nation, enlisting volunteers in the 
chivalric strife and patriotic warfare in which, 
after reaching his majority, he lived and died. 
We may recall how, in the history of Rome, a 
wide cleft appeared in the city, dividing it. The 
oracles were consulted; and the answer was that 
what constituted the principal strength of the city 
must be cast into the opening. Curtius, a young 
knight, decided that manhood was what Rome 
most revered ; and, after having arrayed himself in 
full armor and mounted his horse, he plunged into 
the chasm. The people threw after him their 
offerings and quantities of the fruits of the earth, 



REDEMPTION OF THE CITY. 1 79 

and the earth closed over him immediately. 
Robert Ross, the young Trojan knight, in full 
Christian armor, threw himself into Troy's abyss; 
and we may believe that since the people at large 
and the Committee for Safety have added their 
gifts to his and to those of his father and brothers, 
Troy's gap has closed. Men who will fill gaps, and 
throw themselves into the chasms of cities, are the 
men who in life and in death will redeem our cities 
and enable us to reach the goal of our civic life. 



The following poem, by the editor of The 
Century Magazine, Richard Watson Gilder, kindly 
furnished in advance of its publication in the 
magazine, very appropriately closes the record of 
these pages : 

A HERO OF PEACE. 

ROBERT ROSS: MURDERED AT THE POLLS, IN TROY, MARCH 6, 1 894. 

No bugle on the blast 

Calls warriors face to face. 
Grim battle being forever past, 

Gone is the hero-race. 

Ah, no ! There is no peace ! 

If liberty shall live, 
Never may freemen dare to cease 

Their love, their life, to give. 



l80 A MARTYR OF TO-DAY. 



Unto the patriot's heart 

The silent summons comes; 

Not braver he who does his part 
To the sound of beating drums. 

And thou who gavest youth, 
And life, and all most dear — 

Sweet soul, impassionate of truth, 
White on thy murdered bier ! 

Thy deed, thy date, thy name, 

Are wreathed with deathless flowers 

Thy fate shall be the guiding flame 
That lights to nobler hours. 



Richard Watson Gilder. 



FINIS. 



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